4.48 psychosis

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4.48 Psychosis is the fifth and final play by the British playwright Sarah Kane . It premiered at the Royal Court Jerwood Theater Upstairs after the writer's death in June 2000, directed by James Macdonald .

action

Kane does not list any characters. 4.48 Psychosis is a series of monologues , chains of numbers and dialogues without any roles . The piece describes a person's experiences with relapses of depression, attempted suicide, and therapeutic treatment. A dense world of images flows through the text; the reader or viewer is confronted with the perception of depressive, psychotic consciousness. Accordingly, the text of the piece appears fragmented. There are descriptions of actions, diagnoses and dialogues, but these cannot be put into a valid chronological sequence.

shape

Sarah Kane succeeds in giving the text a logic in a chopped up, fragmented way. The title denotes the moment of clearest perception , which the author regularly experienced at 4:48 a.m. in her last depressive phase. Freed from the influence of sedative medication, she felt capable of clear thoughts and articulations. It is noteworthy in this context that Kane wrote the piece during a period of severe depression. The reader or viewer gets an insight into the delusional consciousness of a character, which is in part certainly to be equated with that of the author. The abrupt change from monologue to dialogue to strings of numbers and words makes it impossible to identify a uniform form in language.

Productions

James Macdonald had the text played by three people - two women and one man - in the world premiere . Special attention was paid to the performance after the author committed suicide shortly after the piece was finished .

After the world premiere of 4.48 Psychosis in the Royal Court in 2000, there have been various productions of "4.48 Psychosis": among others at the BAM Harvey Theater in Brooklyn (October 2003), at the Old Red Lion (Tangram Theater, 2006), Arcola Theater (2006) , the Young Vic (summer 2009), the Barbican (TR Warszawa, Easter 2010), Access Theater (Raw Theater Group, Easter 2010), The Theater Project (Off Off-Broadway - The Red Room, summer 2010), ADC Theater ( October 2010), York Theater Royal (March 2011) and the Sittingbourne Community College Theater Company (2011). The German premiere had its premiere on November 7, 2001 at the Münchner Kammerspiele . Director: Thierza Bruncken . On January 21, 2012, Johann Simons brought the piece out again at the Kammerspiele in Munich , together with the two other works by Sarah Kane, Gier and Gesäubert .

Review and reception

The division of a person into victims, perpetrators and spectators was noticed - represented by the three actors. 4.48 Psychosis is generally seen as the conclusive conclusion of Sarah Kane's oeuvre - the dissolution of perspectives and the desperate search for love and a solution to desire (as also discussed excessively in greed ) come to an end in the physical dissolution of both the person in the piece also the author herself.

Michael Billington of the Guardian asked how one could pull an aesthetic note out of a 75-minute suicide note, and attested that the piece was as uncompromising as Kane's life. Charles Spencer of the Telegraph saw it as a cry of pain as an act of artistic heroism. David Greig noted that the piece was composed with the painful awareness that it would only be performed posthumously .

Adaptation

A production in Polish translation with English subtitles, which was positively received by critics, was staged at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in 2008 by the Polish theater company TR Warszawa . In this production Magdalena Cielecka was supported by several members of the TR Warszawa. The piece was a revised revival of the Polish premiere in Warsaw . Indian director Arvind Gaur staged 4.48 Psychosis in 2005 as a one-person play with British actress Ruth Sheard in the lead role.

The version by the German director Kay Voges , which premiered on May 3, 2014, works in addition to two actors and one actress with their body data, which is collected via special sensors and then converted into video and music, and so the piece by one before Expand non-displayable level. The actors play in a semi-permeable video cube that is illuminated from all four sides.

Part of the text was set to music by the pop group Tindersticks on the album "Waiting for the Moon" (2003). The Swedish band Aktiv Dödshjälp released an album entitled 4:48 based on the drama.

literature

  • David Greig: Introduction. Complete Plays by Sarah Kane. Methuen, London 2001, ISBN 978-0-413-74260-5 . S.ix-xviii.
  • Sarah Kane: 4:48 Psychosis . In Complete Plays . Methuen, London 2001, ISBN 978-0-413-74260-5 . p. 203-245.
  • Betsy Alayne Ryan: Gertrude Stein's Theater of the Absolute . Theater and Dramatic Studies Ser., 21. UMI Research Press, Ann Arbor and London 1984 ISBN 0-8357-2021-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b David Greig: Introduction to Sarah Kane: Complete Plays . 2001.
  2. ^ Rhoda Koenig: Crave and 4.48 Psychosis, Royal Court Theater Downstairs, London. In: The Independent. May 17, 2001, archived from the original on September 10, 2010 ; accessed on June 16, 2012 (English).
  3. ↑ Martin Harries: Sarah Kane Was Not A Suicide. In: Hotreview.org. Retrieved June 16, 2012 .
  4. ↑ Louise Hill: Theater review: 4.48 Psychosis at Old Red Lion (2006). In: The British Theater Guide. Retrieved June 16, 2012 .
  5. ↑ Dominic Cavendish: 4.48 Psychosis at the Barbican Theater, review. TR Warszawa's Polish production of Sarah Kane's 4.48 Psychosis is harrowing. In: The Telegraph. March 24, 2010, accessed on June 16, 2012 (English, rating: * * * *).
  6. ^ Ian Fisher: Sarah Kane hot news archive 2010. In: iainfisher.com. Retrieved June 16, 2012 .
  7. ↑ Rosie Field: 4.48 Psychosis - York Theater Royal. In: The Yorker. March 16, 2011, archived from the original on September 12, 2012 ; accessed on June 16, 2012 (English).
  8. ↑ Münchner Kammerspiele - Cleansed / Greed / 4.48 Psychosis. In: Münchner Kammerspiele. Archived from the original on June 26, 2015 ; Retrieved June 16, 2012 .
  9. ↑ How do you judge a 75-minute suicide note? : In: The Guardian , June 30, 2000.
  10. ↑ Sarah Kane's howl of pain is an act of artistic heroism . In: The Telegraph , May 14, 2001.
  11. ↑ Martin Kaysh: Kay with the box - Voges stages in Dortmund 4.48 Psychosis. ruhrbarone.de, May 6, 2014, accessed May 8, 2014 .
  12. ↑ Aktiv dödshjälp - 4:48 (CD in jewelcase). In: halvfabrikat.net. Retrieved June 16, 2012 (Swedish).