Royal Court Theatre: '4:48 Psychosis'

Royal Court Theatre: '4:48 Psychosis'
November 6, 2004
UCLA Freud Playhouse
Written by Sarah Kane

"4.48 Psychosis" is British playwright Sarah Kane's meditation, of sorts, on suicide. It is essentially a text more than a play, which meanders through the mind of a suicidally depressed person and explores the elements causing that person to be depressed as well as society's reaction to that depression.

If you looked at the text, it'd be difficult to see how the play might be staged (I read the play before I went to see this show, since we were studying two of her plays in a class I am taking). It looks like a very long monologue, separated into fragments: in parts, the fragments run through a laundry list of things that are wrong with the person's life, in other parts it is an A and B dialogue between a psychologist and the person. The play rambles between the fragments, thus having the effect of someone desperately combing through one's memory.

It was interesting to see, then, how the play was translated to the stage. This production, which is on tour to various smaller venues through the US, took place entirely on the stage of the Freud Playhouse: not only was the action on stage, but the audience was too. The company built a black box theatre of sorts into the stage house of UCLA's Freud Playhouse; there was a seating stand for the audience on the stage, facing a small area that was the minimal set. The set was a white floor with two chairs and a table, with an angled mirror reflecting the stage floor so that the audience could see it from above. This created some powerful stage pictures with video being projected onto the stage floor.

Three actors performed the play, with the fragments flowing into each other and the actors alternating the various parts. The staging thus took on the form of a series of interconnected monologues. The action of the play all melded to powerfully create stage pictures to complement the text.

Perhaps the most interesting parts of the play were the portions between the psychologist and the "person" of the play. The psychologist uses psychobabble and counselling techniques that are familiar to us from self-help books and television. But used in the context that they are, they prove very unhelpful and increasingly insensitive. They are so impersonable and run-of-the-mill that it seems almost impossible in helping the "person" or anyone. A comment, perhaps, on the lack of understanding between psychology and a suicidally depressed person?

Overall, the Royal Court's production was very strong. Sarah Kane's play is thought-provoking and powerful, and it is complemented even more by the high-standard of acting and dedication from those involved in the production. Fittingly, the play was presented as part of UCLA's International Theatre Festival, a fringe festival of sorts for plays from the international scene. Kane's play is certainly not mainstream. But as this production suggests, there is still very interesting material to be found in rather more off-the-wall plays such as this one.