Twenty-five years because it was first staged, the playwright Sarah Kane’s ultimate play returns to the Royal Court docket’s Jerwood Theatre Upstairs. Labelled Kane’s “suicide notice” by critics (the play was first carried out the 12 months after Kane took her personal life), 4.48 Psychosis enters into the thoughts of an unnamed girl battling suicidal ideas, derealisation and poor affected person care – horrors made all of the extra intense by a theatre that sits 80.
First carried out earlier than sertraline, Prozac and venlafaxine grew to become a part of informal dialog, it’s no shock that the play disturbed viewers. 1 / 4 of a century on, it’s nonetheless disturbing. And it must be. Kane convincingly portrayed the desperation and urgency of suicidal ideas. The unnamed girl is performed by three actors – all of whom had been a part of the unique forged – at instances talking in unison, ending one another’s sentences or contradicting each other. The monologues, although, can’t be taken for delirious ramblings – the play’s protagonist is very clever and self-aware, eliciting laughs from the viewers.
Her erratic moods are solely intensified by Nigel Edwards’ lighting design: the blue and purple washes, low golden lights, the white and greys of TV static forged over the actors after the principle character begins taking her antidepressants. The set designer, Jeremy Herbert, provides the viewers an alternate perspective by way of which to look at: a six-panelled mirror, suspended from the ceiling at an angle. You possibly can select to see the story unfold in entrance of you, as you’ll actual life, or watch a distorted reflection of it.
“Hatch opens,” say the actors on quite a few events. However what do they imply? A second of readability and aid amid the anguish? A hatch into Kane’s thoughts in the previous couple of months earlier than she took her personal life? Both method, 4.48 Psychosis is a remarkably frank dissection of a thoughts at warfare with itself.
4.48 Psychosis
Royal Court docket, London WC2. Till 5 July 2025
[See also: Thom Yorke’s Hamlet is brilliantly rendered sacrilege]