4.48 Psychosis - visual poetry

Bob Henderson, PINK PAPER MAGAZINE

Rating: *****

As the loud students next to me were to eager to proclaim, “it’s a suicide note!”. Atleast, that’s the obvious conclusion if you look at the text for Sarah Kane’s last ever play before she took her own life. Legally Blonde this aint.

What this production does so well is weave a coherent autobiographical narrative from a script that stubbornly defies such a staging. If it weren’t for the last line (I won’t spoil it for you) you’d be forgiven for thinking it should remain in a written form.

As an autobiographical staging, you're presented with a sympathetic lesbian relationship, with moments of genuine tenderness, capturing the physical intimacy two people can develop in a relationship regardless of gender. Which is all the more heartbreaking when it unravels and the protagonist is left all alone, with nothing but medical science to seek refuge in.

This subtle production deftly avoids a lot of the self indulgent pitfalls Kane’s work is usually a victim of; there are no childish screeches of angry sentiment, and the use of both young and old cast members helps lift the play beyond that of one singular troubled woman and gives a visual poetry to match that of the script.

4.48 Psychosis fills you with the kind of deep numbing sadness that makes even the thought of throwing yourself under the tube on the way home seem a bit pointless. I don’t think the irony of calling such theatre “life affirming” would have been lost on Kane, but it’s a powerful reminder of how life, and theatre, can kick you back in touch with your emotions.