4.48 Psychosis (Methuen Modern Plays)

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Bold and visually stunning' - The Guardian, "Beautifully portrayed by an extraordinary cast of both deaf and hearing performers." - WhatsOnStage Psychosis is Sarah Kane’s brutal and poetic exploration of a mind preparing to shut itself down. Spiked with gallows humour, Sarah Kane’s fifth and final play charts the journey of mind and body; from darkness into light, from pain into love, from life into death. are not random, but “serial 7’s” from the mental status exam. Quotations from the Book of Revelations appear

Aproductive insight into the problems of deaf mental health patients, forcing us to confront the fact that their experiences are rarely considered.”

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The Nameless: There is no names or characters which has left director's the difficulty of what to do. Frommy pointof view, as a hearing person who doesn’t understand BSL, both the beauty and the difficulty of BSL in this play is the way it can become mime, even dance. When it works, it shines, but when it doesn’t, it looks confusingly like charades. Though not every movement is abstracted language; about halfway through the 80-minuteperformance there is an anarchic dance sequence and the change of movement from expression to suppression is chilling. The defining feature of this production is its ability to utterly captivate and move its audience, making it essential viewing." Psychosis has divided critical opinions. Michael Billington of The Guardian newspaper asked, "How on earth do you award aesthetic points to a 75-minute suicide note?" [5] Charles Spencer of the Telegraph said "it is impossible not to view it as a deeply personal howl of pain.” [6] David Greig considered the play to be "perhaps uniquely painful in that it appears to have been written in the almost certain knowledge that it would be performed posthumously." [1] Opera [ edit ]

The issues of gender and mental health explored in 4.48 are subject to far more mainstream debate today than when the play was written. But Venables, who has specifically dealt with gender in some of his previous work, says social or political issues were not at the forefront of his thinking. “Of course they are in there and we have made decisions about gender, for instance, by having an all-female cast. But we’re not doing anything representational. The main attraction was more an avant-garde structural thing. Can the way the text was written be mirrored in an operatic structure that is also nonconformist?” Psychosis is composed of twenty-four sections which have no specified setting, characters or stage directions. Its language varies between dialogues, confessions and contemplative poetic monologues reminiscent of schizophasia. Certain images are repeated within the script, particularly that of "hatch opens, stark light"; a repeated motif in the play is " serial sevens" which involves counting down from one hundred by sevens, a bedside test often used by psychiatrists to test for loss of concentration or memory.Thursday April 27th: Sarah Kane’s work in retrospect. A theatre critic once commented that “the Jury’s still out on Kane”. We examine this now, and discuss Sarah Kane’s legacy in the context of modern day British Theatre.

Therefore it was the composer that decided what parts of the text were to be musicalized; which were to be sung and how, which were spoken, or which to be projected. As a result of the various ways in which text was utilised, the resulting dramaturgy could be considered as one that was stratified with the text woven between instrumentalists, singers, and the scenography. But the play is as much a literary as a theatrical event. Like Sylvia Plath's Edge, it is a rare example of the writer recording the act she is about to perform. As a piece of theatre, 4.48 Psychosis is grave and haunt ing. James Macdonald directs it with meticulous precison; Daniel Evans, Jo McInnes and Madeleine Potter perform it with unsparing honesty. Suicide by Pills: The play has a list of the medication Sarah was possibly given, however she finds the pills numbing and is unable to be creative. However the character feeling the same instead tries to overdose, then succeeds. Of note is that Sarah survived at least one overdose attempt. Improv: The play has no stage directions or characters so the director has the freedom to do what they wish.

2.1 General Concept and Team

Percussion: two bass drums, two high-strikers, woodsaw & wood, other standard orchestral percussion. Psychosis is a production from the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, London. This production was first seen at the Lyric, Hammersmith on 24 May 2016. Greig, David. 2001. Introduction. Complete Plays by Sarah Kane. London: Methuen. ISBN 978-0-413-74260-5. p.ix-xviii.

An operatic adaptation of 4.48 Psychosis, commissioned by Royal Opera and written by British composer Philip Venables, was staged at the Lyric Hammersmith in 2016. The first such adaptation of Kane's works, the production was approved by Sarah Kane's brother, and received critical acclaim. [7] [8] [9] References to the play [ edit ] Psychosis opera is rawly powerful and laceratingly honest - review". The Telegraph . Retrieved 28 May 2016. Text is in english, but foreign-language versions can be prepared (French, Italian). A German version is already available. For more information about our company, visit www.tangramtheatre.co.ukSarah Kane was born in 1971. Her first play Blasted was produced at the Royal Court Theater Upstairs in 1995. Her second play, Phaedra’s Love, was produced at the Gate Theatre in 1996. In April 1998, Cleansed was produced at the Royal Cout Theatre Downstairs and in September 1998, Crave was produced by Paines Plough and Bright Ltd at the Traverse Theatre, Edinbourgh. Her last play, 4.48 Psychosis, premiered at the Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Upstairs in June 2000. Her short film Skin, produced by British Screen/Channel Four, premiered in June 1997. Sarah Kane died in 1999. It's beautiful, it's dark, it's funny, it's tragic, it's morbid, it's complex, it's to-the-point, it's hopeful, it's hopeless, it's logical, it's chaotic, it's there, in your face, it's the truth.Psychosis, a Royal Opera House production, is at the Lyric Hammersmith, London, from 24 to 28 May. Box office: 020-8741 6850.