Montague Basement Cross-Casts CLEANSED at Sydney Fringe

Montague Basement's production of Cleansed will see the role of Tinker, the mysterious character who dissects, observes and obliterates the other characters in the play, cross-cast and played as a woman by Annie Stafford.

This is the first production of this shocking and controversial play in Sydney outside of an educational institution.

"The cross casting has added another layer to onion that is Tinker," says Stafford. "It plays against expectations for a woman to be nurturing. In a man, this sort of display of power would be deemed as just that: power. In a woman, it's usually labelled as unhinged".

Player Tinker as a woman creates a space to explore repressed sexuality and internalised homophobia, as the character takes out her own repressed identity and the institutional strictures she hides behind on the other characters.

"To me, she has no idea who she is, no sense of self," Stafford explains. "Despite her control and power in the play, I think she the weakest and most vulnerable character."

Stafford graduated the National Institute of Dramatic Art in 2016. Cleansed is her first production with Montague Basement.

Director Saro Lusty-Cavallari describes the play as "spectacularly audacious", noting that "to me the play is about this tension between what is designated as productive and what is designated as useless."

To put this tension into the hands of a female character creates a fraught dialogue around society's expectations and outcasts.

"The whole play is framed through this bizzare combination of school, hospital and labour camp that tries to contain the gay, mentally ill, drug addicts and sex workers - the people who we believe are useless", Lusty-Cavallari explains.

"The hacking of limbs, the reconstruction of the body, the coercive treatment of the mind - it's all an attempt to make sense of these frustratingly incomplete and illogical people Kane has created."

But - "there's an underlying hopefulness," Lusty-Cavallari adds. "So would you rather be pummeled with brutality and offered hope or have hopelesness gently explained to you? I think that's the very tricky question underneath Sarah Kane".

IF YOU GO:

Cleansed by Sarah Kane at the Sydney Fringe
Directed and Designed by Saro Lusty-Cavallari
Produced by Imogen Gardam
Dramaturgy by Michaela Savina

With Sam Brewer, Lucy Burke, Alex Chalwell, Kurt Pimblett, Jem Rowe, Michaela Savina and Annie Stafford

Venue: PACT
Dates: 19 - 23 September
Times: 8pm
Bookings: montaguebasement.com/cleansed

Artwork by Hannah Cox

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