She was there to talk about her plays – Blasted, which had scandalised and horrified the critical establishment back in 1995, and her equally mould-breaking dramas Cleansed and Crave, both of which had opened earlier that year. Philip Venables’ award-winning operatic adaptation of Kane’s play is the first ever permitted adaptation of any of her work. The creative team decided to invite groups of actors to read through the text, to plot out how many voices were needed, who might speak where.

The controversy began over Blasted, Kane’s first play presented at London’s Royal Court Theatre in 1995. The interpretations and responses that we have received so far have not been very pleasant, of course, with many even seeing it as an example of ‘theatre of cruelty’. It was crucial to Kane to show depression with all the accuracy she could summon, he adds: “Mental illness is so often sentimentalised, or portrayed as madness – I hate that word. Mental health issues are still a stigma in our society, so telling such an account is bound to have repercussions. Psychosis is a ‘choreopoem’ that follows the upheavals of a girl’s psyche, who really wanted to live but was never in love with life.

She understands theatre at such a deep level; in some ways I don’t think we’ve caught up with her yet.

Some portions appear to be dialogue, perhaps between a patient and a dictatorial clinician (“ Oh dear, what’s happened to your arm? End of the day, theatre is a form of art and its aesthetics are crucial to keeping the audience’s attention. It felt like we had a responsibility to give breath and life to this amazing thing that Sarah had created. In 2003, there was a successful staging in Brazil, which played to a full house for six consecutive months in São Paulo, and also gained media attention for its defying gender aspect, as the role was performed by male actor Luiz Päetow.

The spring after her death, Simon Kane contacted director James Macdonald, who had debuted both Blasted and Cleansed; he agreed to take the project on, and set about trying to persuade the Royal Court. Old Red Lion Theatre (Tangram Theatre, 2006), Arcola Theatre (2006), the Young Vic Theatre (2009), the Barbican Theatre (TR Warszawa, Easter 2010), Access Theatre (Raw Theatre Group, Easter 2010), The Theatre Project (Off Off-Broadway - The Red Room, Summer 2010), ADC Theatre (October 2010), York Theatre Royal (March 2011), Sittingbourne Community College Theatre Company (July 2011), The Hamilton Fringe Festival at Theatre Aquarius [Black Box Fire Theatre Company, July 2011] and the George Ignatieff Theatre at University of Toronto (27–29 October 2011), Fourth Monkey Theatre Company (March 2012), Rangi Ruru Girls' School performed it in the New Zealand Theatre Federation Festival (September 2012), Crooked Pieces (Drayton Theatre London, September 2012), The Questors Theatre (January 2015), director Roza Sarkisian and Theatre Actor, Kyiv, Ukraine (2018), Anton's Well Theater Company, Oakland, California (July—August 2018), and Chico State Theater Company at California State University, Chico (December 2022).

Psychosis was first performed at the Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Upstairs , London, on 23 June 2000. When he got the news that his sister had taken an overdose, Simon rushed to visit her in hospital, then went to her flat in Brixton to collect some belongings. Other themes that run throughout the script, in addition to depression, are those of isolation, dependency, relationships, and love. To me the heart of it is a love story – what does it mean to love, can we love, all those questions. The opera was first presented in 2016 by the Royal Opera in London, in a production by Ted Huffman, and has subsequently seen productions in London, New York City, Strasbourg and Dresden.

The easiest thing to say is that it is derived from the Greek word for "actor" – someone who pretends that they are something that they are not. There were a few who left the play in the beginning itself, because it was just too much to cope with it mentally.

Sarah Kane burst on the London stage at the age of 24, in a media frenzy of scorn, derision and distaste for her work. Charles Spencer of the Telegraph said "it is impossible not to view it as a deeply personal howl of pain.The grotesquerie of Kane’s theater is not simply self-indulgent; it is meant, very directly, to shock the audience out of their comfort zone and into a more nightmarish reality. deserves to be seen as the astonishing piece of theatre it is – as playful as it is confessional, simultaneously precise and improvisatory, roaring with life and wit and energy as it gazes unblinkingly at depression and death.