Voices Of Personal Psychosis
The Age
Friday August 3, 2007
4.48 PSYCHOSIS
By Sarah Kane, Red Stitch Actors Theatre, July 28. Until August 25. Running time: 70 minutes, www.redstitch.net 4.48 PSYCHOSIS is the last work written by British playwright Sarah Kane before she hanged herself in February 1999. It deals directly with the subject of suicide and, like Sylvia Plath's last poems, it foreshadows the act and mode of the playwright's own death.Whatever the parallels to actual events, however, 4.48 Psychosis is more than a suicide note in dramatic form. Kane is too sophisticated a writer to limit her work to self-absorbed reflection, and her courageous preparedness to examine her own illness and despair makes this an important tract in the literature of psychosis.Kane's poetic text leaves the form of the play completely open. There are various voices apparent, such as therapist and client, but Kane doesn't specify scenes or even the number of characters. It is therefore up to the director to choose how they will realise the text on stage.Alyson Campbell's production for Red Stitch gives us four actors: Olivia Connolly, Richard Bligh, Tom Davies and Suzette Williams. Campbell keeps the tone contained and controlled throughout. The actors do not imitate the psychosis of the title with histrionics, but rather suppress their expressive capacities. This leads to fairly flat delivery, but allows the text to speak clearly for itself. The metaphors are more apparent in Peter Mumford's elegant set design, which despite the intimacy of the Red Stitch space creates a deep vortex of the mind and soul by means of ever receding door frames. Richard Whitehouse's inventive lighting design establishes an intricate series of changing moods and emotional textures.The play finishes with a beautiful theatrical gesture as the audience is effectively invited to become part of the production, and Kane's final line, "Please, open the curtains", resounds with multiple layers of signification.
© 2007 The Age