4.48 Psychosis
Ratings12
Average rating3.9
4.48 Psychosis sees the ultimate narrowing of Sarah Kane's focus in her work. The struggle of the self to remain intact has moved in her work from civil war, into the family, into the couple, into the individual, and finally into the theatre of phychosis: the mind itself. This play was written in 1999 shortly before the playwright took her own life at age 28. On the page, the piece looks like a poem. No characters are named, and even their number is unspecified. It could be a journey through one person's mind, or an interview between a doctor and his patient.
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Though it's potentially revealing in regards to the mindset of someone with suicidal thoughts and the play cleverly twists conventions by making it unclear whether she's talking with a doctor or to herself, the way in which the play was structured made it a slight challenge to fully engage with it. It reads more like a long poem. One could certainly argue however that was the point of the piece given how it can be looked at as Kane's real-life suicide note.
It is one of the few books I've read that captures the pain of mental illness, and I'd be curious to see how directors would adopt this as a theatre piece considering there are no stage directions given
Though it's potentially revealing in regards to the mindset of someone with suicidal thoughts and the play cleverly twists conventions by making it unclear whether she's talking with a doctor or to herself, the way in which the play was structured made it a slight challenge to fully engage with it. It reads more like a long poem. One could certainly argue however that was the point of the piece given how it can be looked at as Kane's real-life suicide note.
It is one of the few books I've read that captures the pain of mental illness, and I'd be curious to see how directors would adopt this as a theatre piece considering there are no stage directions given
