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4.48 Psychosis (Methuen Modern Plays)

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A Bangalore Little Theatre (BLT) production, the play is directed by Srinivas Beesetty, with Naman Roy as the assistant director, who has also acted in the play.

The grotesquerie of Kane’s theater is not simply self-indulgent; it is meant, very directly, to shock the audience out of their comfort zone and into a more nightmarish reality. Narrating stories of depression and anxiety on stage can be difficult, especially if the storyline sounds more like a ‘suicide note’ than the script of a play. McInnes, who now works as a director, admits that at first she wasn’t sure: “I remember reading it on the train home, I couldn’t get a handle on it. For six weeks in late spring 2000, they hunkered down at the Royal Court rehearsal rooms, trying to find answers. In 2003, there was a successful staging in Brazil, which played to a full house for six consecutive months in São Paulo, and also gained media attention for its defying gender aspect, as the role was performed by male actor Luiz Päetow.The easiest thing to say is that it is derived from the Greek word for "actor" – someone who pretends that they are something that they are not. Ionesco wrote this book, Notes and Counternotes, which is a compilation of essays and interviews and various speeches that he made throughout life, all about theater. There’d been these tabloid frenzies over her early plays, and we wanted this play to be received as a play. In one essay, he’ll contradict what he just said in the previous essay, or he’ll say something completely opposite of anything he’s ever said, and that’s where the idea of Notes and Counternotes derives from. The first such adaptation of Kane's works, the production was approved by Sarah Kane's brother, and received critical acclaim.

But Sarah did kill herself, and she was writing a play about what it feels like to be suicidally depressed. Elsewhere, a single voice pulsates with anxiety, and another records sardonic clinical notes: “Lofepramine and Citalopram discontinued after patient got pissed off with side effects and lack of obvious improvement. The creative team decided to invite groups of actors to read through the text, to plot out how many voices were needed, who might speak where. In the years since, the myth has only hardened – Kane the tortured martyr, driven to put her own psyche on stage.

Psychosis, commissioned by Royal Opera and written by British composer Philip Venables, was staged at the Lyric Hammersmith in 2016. All three actors set about learning the text in its entirety; every moment would be rehearsed, but in keeping with the script’s freeform feel, it was decided that some sections should be left to the moment – if one person started a speech, the lines would be theirs for that performance. Only a handful of people had been allowed access to the script; neither Macdonald or Simon Kane were willing to talk to the press. The controversy began over Blasted, Kane’s first play presented at London’s Royal Court Theatre in 1995.

View image in fullscreen ‘It felt like we had a responsibility to give breath and life to this amazing thing that Sarah had created’ … Daniel Evans, Jo McInnes and Madeleine Potter in 4. Psychosis is composed of twenty-four sections which have no specified setting, characters or stage directions. If Kane is not exactly part of the establishment – the thought would probably have amused and horrified her – she is now a canonical figure, celebrated in many countries worldwide. Obviously, it isn’t an easy watch for the audience either, as there is a constant sense of distress and discomfort among all. She understands theatre at such a deep level; in some ways I don’t think we’ve caught up with her yet.

She points to Kane’s formal experimentalism, the startling urgency and precision of her language, the way the play itself invites the audience to experience a form of psychosis, in which reality dissolves even as it appears.

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