Suicidal tendencies at 4.48 Psychosis
4.48 Psychosis is Sarah Kane’s deeply personal, and relentlessly intense final play. To do it justice requires both an original vision, capable of handling the highly ambiguous script, and acting strong enough to convey the complexities of a mind in the slow process of degeneration. The production put on at the Stagecoach Theatre delivered on all accounts.
The play traces from a first-person account, the journey of a manic depressive as she reluctantly agrees to medication, is admitted to a hospital where she appears to find some relief, and is discharged only to commit suicide shortly after.
The principal role was wisely shared by three performers; Becky Baxter, Lucy Blake, and Charlotte Powell, whose close ensemble work allowed for a wide range of subtleties to come through. Together they embodied the pained contradictions experienced by a woman who craves an end but does not desire death. The ensemble work did not hide individual talents however, as each of the three actors was given the opportunity to prove herself in her own right at various points in the play.
James Harvey excelled as the Doctor, whose clinical imperturbability contrasted starkly and effectively with his patient’s visceral suffering. His professionalism and rationality were played to the extreme, so that his portrayal simultaneously provided a degree of questionable sanity, while pushing still further the surreal aspect that is ever-present in the play. Particularly chilling was his rejection of his patient when she attempted to reach out to him for friendship and love: “You do not need a friend,” he tells her, “you need a doctor.”
What made this production especially compelling, was undoubtedly the innovative direction linked with an imaginative approach to set design. In a high-impact start, the actors literally ripped themselves out of their confinement under a vast sheet of paper, a theme which recurred throughout as layer after layer of the floor they stood on was ripped away, exposing ever-changing aspects of the patient’s torn psyche. At one point the actors scribbled all over the sheets with marker pens, a nod to the relationship between author, text, and performance.
A strict adherence to black and white made the occasional burst of colour as startling as the rich, lucid language that elevates this play far above a mere suicide note. The total black-out at the end left the audience with the helpless feeling of a life ended far too soon.
