Sarah Kane’s 4:48 Psychosis makes for one of the most daunting directorial challenges in modern British playwriting. Wholly flouting theatrical conventions – there are no characters, no plot, no setting or even stage directions – Kane’s work leaves a director with the freedom to arrange the action as they will, but creates the almost insurmountable task of creating meaning and coherence when there is so little in the text. The last of Kane’s plays before her death in 1999, it is difficult not to approach 4:48 Psychosis as an extended suicide note, given that it is likely that Kane knew that the work would only ever be performed posthumously. Dealing as it does with clinical depression – a condition Kane battled throughout her adult life – and self-destruction, the shadow of Kane’s autobiography hangs heavy over the work. A strong directorial vision is essential to making this play work dramatically – a play that is more structurally akin to a poem or monologue. Unfortunately, this production lacks just that. Dramatic artistry and risk taking are hardly apparent in this rather underwhelming production.
Minimalism is so often the stock mode of student drama that I cannot help but think that in choosing to stage the play in this way, Marchella Ward’s production is simply taking the easy way out of presenting a play that could be rich in imagery and iconoclasm. Kane herself spoke of her continual attraction to the stage in just these terms: ‘I keep coming back in the hope that someone, in a darkened room somewhere, will show me an image which burns itself into my mind.’ The decision to split the central ego of the work, a voice that has been closely aligned with that of the playwright herself, into the logical and irrational aspects of a psyche also seems dramatically unimaginative. To steal a phrase from a fellow reviewer, the play had more than a strong feel of ‘GCSE Drama’: a sentiment which I feel is strongly borne out by the play’s blocking, which sometimes felt like a check list of ways in which a group of actors could stand still on a stage.
The dogged commitment this production has to maintaining a tone of overwrought anger also seems misguided. Within Kane’s writing there is humour and tragedy, depression and hysteria, confusion and clear-sighted sanity, all which seem to be flattened out into a state of bubbling agitation by this production, which more than anything else quickly gets tedious to watch. Yet I can see the logic of this consistent tone, as according to friend and playwright David Greig the title of the play refers to the minute at which Kane frequently awoke in her confusion and anxiety. Therefore the play has the feel of a series of continual agitated present moments, but I would have liked a little more nuance in the emotional atmosphere of the play.
The play manages however to preserve the poetry and honesty of Kane’s writing. Thanks mostly to Fran Denny’s empathetic central performance – half a star is hers alone – it is difficult not to identify with the playwright’s portrayal of a psychotic mind. However, the doctors that attend to her give lacklustre performances and I would have liked a stronger sense of the antagonism that the play holds towards the medical profession to have more fully developed.
Kane’s play is a generous gift to any audience, whether we view it in the light of autobiography or not – it speaks achingly of depression, love and loneliness with an urgency that belies its status as art. It’s a shame that this production doesn’t take more imaginative risks or exploit the autonomy that Kane’s text gives to the director, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth seeing. Above all, Sarah Kane’s writing speaks for itself.
2.5 STARS
