4.48 Psychosis

Synopsis

'I dreamt I went to the doctor's and she gave me eight minutes to live. I'd been sitting in the fucking waiting room half an hour.' Sarah Kane is one of the most controversial playwrights of the 20th Century. Her last play, 4.48 Psychosis, is an immersion beneath a deeply troubled mind. Kane sees beyond depression as simply a mental illness and articulates the true implications of such a condition from the inside out. Its ravaging, hypnotic poetry and 'gallows humour' leave an indelible mark on the mind. This intense and vital experience delves deep in to the psyche, blurring the boundaries of sanity and insanity and shows us a heart-breakingly honest tragedy of consciousness.

Our Review:

Jo Caird - 24 July 2009

Leaving the Young Vic studio after Anamaria Marinca’s astounding 72-minute performance of Sarah Kane’s 4.48 Psychosis is like letting go of a breath that has been held for too long. All of Kane’s play are intense of course, but director Christian Benedetti’s decision to present 4.48 Psychosis as a one-woman show heightens this intensity to the extent that everything else is swallowed up in it.

This play, Kane’s last before she killed herself, presents the inner workings of a psychotic mind, the thoughts and feelings of a person who has made the decision to end her life as a cure for the misery of existence. Discussions with doctors, mad ramblings and rational explanations of suicidal impulses are all delivered with utter commitment by Marinca, whose Eastern European accent (she is Romanian) gives an almost robotic tone to Kane’s words.

For the duration of the piece Marinca is glued to the stage, her feet not budging on...

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