Dates: 4/5/2024 - 4/27/2024
📍 Theatre: The Catastrophic Theatre
3400 Main Street
Houston, TX 77002
Phone: box office at 713-521-4533
Tickets: Pay-What-You-Can! ($35 suggested)
Regional Premiere of Sarah Kane’s
CLEANSED
April 5 through April 27
"LOVE ME OR KILL ME"
Written by the most notorious playwright of the late 20th century, CLEANSED is perhaps the most ambitious, longing, redemptive play in Catastrophic history.
In a former university, society’s “undesirables” are subjected to a series of tortures designed to test the limits of human love on the battlefield of the human body. Explosively aching, hauntingly poetic, and disarmingly tender, CLEANSED is a fever-dream fable of unimaginable brutality and miraculous beauty.
"Once you have perceived that life is very cruel, the only response is to live with as much humanity, humor and freedom as you can.”
- Sarah Kane
We live in a country and in a time of weaponized intolerance that poses immediate danger toward the bodies and lives of those that look, live, or love in ways that deviate from the most conservative societal constructs. Every character in Kane’s CLEANSED would be at risk in today’s America. 26 years after it was written, producing this nightmarishly prescient play feels like an urgent and necessary cause.
“To create something beautiful about despair is for me the most life-affirming thing a person can do.” – Sarah Kane
The regional premiere of CLEANSED is co-directed by core artist T Lavois Thiebaud and founding artistic director Jason Nodler, reuniting the creative team behind Kane’s 4.48 Psychosis which The Houston Press called “an imaginative bulldozer of a production.”
We’re also thrilled to collaborate with the sculpture group, Moon Papas Art on set construction and special effects.
The cast includes Raymond Compton, Bryan Kaplún, Ruben Ramires, T Lavois Thiebaud, Chuck Vaughn, Abraham Zeus Zapata, Walt Zipprian, Clarity Welch, and Andrew Whit. With music composed and performed by James Templeton and Sarah Moessnerand choreography by Adam Castan͂eda.
NO ONE UNDER 16 ADMITTED.
CLEANSED runs April 5 - 27, 2024 at the Midtown Arts and Theater Center Houston (MATCH). Tickets are on sale now and can be purchased at matchouston.org or by calling the MATCH box office at 713-521-4533. Performances are Thursdays at 7:30 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 p.m., and Sundays at 2:30 p.m. Tickets to all performances are PAY-WHAT-YOU-CAN!
Playwright, director, and actress Candice D’Meza swings for the fences up in the sky with MISS LARAJ’S HOUSE OF DYSTOPIAN FUTURES, but this is hardly a surprise to anyone who has been following her work here in Houston.
Read our interview with Brian Jucha of LOVE BOMB at Catastrophic Theatre.
This company is just really strong at putting on funny-as-hell musical sketch comedies. It’s as if SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE were written by Kander and Ebb.
Should you avoid seeing the show? For God’s sake, no. You will miss what is surely going to be one of the most talked about pieces of work in Houston’s theatrical history. Go see it, and make your own call whether you love or hate it. But don’t let them brainwash you into thinking this is only about love because it is also about repulsion, and that is okay. It is very much as if David Cronenberg and David Lynch made a movie, and Jim Henson designed the sex scenes.
What drew me to the show was what drew me to the work that Catastrophic Theatre does in general. They do work that nobody else does. Work that's largely unexplored in our region, or in our country, or whatever. I'm drawn to that kind of stuff, and Sarah Kane has a unique view of love and human relationships. And I share some of those ideas.
The Catastrophic Theatre's production of Sarah Kane's CLEANSED, scheduled to open this Friday, March 31, has been canceled due to the sudden, untimely death of a beloved cast member.
In a former university, society's “undesirables” are subjected to a series of tortures designed to test the limits of human love on the battlefield of the human body. Explosively aching, hauntingly poetic, and disarmingly tender, CLEANSED is a fever-dream fable of unimaginable brutality and miraculous beauty. CLEANSED is about how love survives the most extreme circumstances. Violence is merely the obstacle. The story is one of righteous need and unrelenting hope.
The Catastrophic Theatre has announced its 2022-23 season, highlighting the work that has made it, along with its forerunner Infernal Bridegroom Productions (IBP), Houston's premier avant-garde theatre for three dang decades.
Where is The Catastrophic Theatre located?
What shows have played recently at The Catastrophic Theatre?
What shows are coming up next at The Catastrophic Theatre?
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Rhinoceros The Catastrophic Theatre (9/18-10/10) |
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Serial Killers: The Crucifixion of the Black Man in America Nikki El Films & Theatre (10/17-10/17) |
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Maricela de la Luz Lights the World Company OnStage (10/03-10/24) |
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Wicked Hobby Center for the Performing Arts (6/23-7/25) |
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Richard O'Brien's THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW Art Factory (10/16-10/31) |
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And Then There Were None Alvin College Theatre (10/10-10/17) |
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Cleopatra Midtown Arts (10/03-10/03) |
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The Sound of Music The Hobby Center for the Performing Arts (9/29-10/04) |
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Sweat Theatre Southwest (2/19-3/13) |
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To The Bone Theatre Southwest (5/28-6/19) |
