Cleansed.

I love you now.
I'm with you now.
I'll do my best, moment to moment, not to betray you.
Now.
That's it. No more. Don't make me lie to you.

I am genuinely inspired by this piece of theatre. Never before have I left a show in a complete, absolute stupor. Post-John Doyle's Sweeney Todd, I was close - but never in such a state that I could barely move or speak. The beauty of Sarah Kane's play is far from obvious. In fact, many people who saw the production ahead of me described it as gratuitously violent to the point that they were so disturbed they lost any idea of where the story was going or simply left to avoid any further discomfort. Rumors that it was violent for the sake of being violent and that it "all has no point" circulated like the PennySaver and, as much as I tried to close my ears to this sort of talk, it was virtually impossible. But didn't I mention beauty? Yes. Yes I did. And lots of it. Inside Neil Peter Jampolis' chain-link cage of a set, on a floor that, over the course of the play, is smeared with blood, chewed (and spit back up) chocolate, urine, paint, water, and mud, the nine actors in Patrick Kennelly's production of Cleansed presented the most exquisite, moving, passionate, honest, sincere, and heartbreaking love story I have ever witnessed. It is not a play about violence or nudity or torture. And I see that; it's brilliantly clear. It's a play about limits, about testing those limits, about endurance and boundaries and the lengths we go to in the name of "love" and love. Seeing this play changed my life. I feel so capable of love and unable to be afraid of expressing it. My perspective on theatre has grown so much since I arrived at UCLA and this production was further proof that I am where I belong - and I hope that, one day, I am a part of a theatrical piece that causes someone to have a reaction like the one I had after seeing this play.