Sometimes life can feel like too much to handle. The world can feel cold and uncaring. The pressures of expectations–your own and others–build up to such a level that you might wish you could just escape from it all.
This is exactly the situation that the main (and perhaps only) character in 4:48 Psychosis finds herself. Portland State’s Theater Arts Student Association, a student group dedicated to producing all-student shows, is putting on the play. An all-female cast dances about the main character, playing both the psych-ward staff attending her, and the many chaotic voices in her head. They speak, chant and sing words, numbers and nonsensical babbling in this truly unique play.
4:48 Psychosis was written by Sarah Kane, who had her first play produced at London’s Royal Court Theater at the age of 24. Her work was always controversial, due mostly to the extreme violence and recurring theme of suicide. Kane herself struggled with severe depression nearly her entire career, being voluntarily hospitalized twice for it and eventually killing herself not long after writing Psychosis. The play is obviously autobiographical and quite prophetic.
The staging of this work is an accomplishment in itself. No characters are delineated in the text, and the dialogue is written in a truncated and lyrical way that defies the conventions of the stage. The director and actors had to decide how to create distinct characters and movements for themselves, and they do a great job, creating seamless motion and characters that flow into each other.
Jennifer Rowe plays the main character, a troubled writer in the psych ward. She crafts the broken dialogue into believably desperate ramblings and shows a tender and attractive side to a character stuck in a sterile environment and deranged mind. The play is almost a one-woman show, and Rowe is obviously up to the task.
Jennifer Lin plays the only other large role, a psychiatrist who has taken a liking to the patient and whom the patient likes. She is appropriately tender, yet distant in the role. Noelle Eaton, Emily Gleason and Alicia Murphy round out the cast by playing a combination of staff nurses and expressions of the madness inside the head of the despairing main character.
4:48 Psychosis is without a doubt the darkest play I have ever seen, and likely the darkest you’ll ever see.
The occasional humor is gloomy. Most people will be ashamed to laugh at it. Suicide and mental illness are the constant–and starkly depicted–themes. I would not recommend the play to anyone who has thought about suicide recently. This play is not for the seriously depressed. Come to think of it, it’s not really for the mildly depressed.
4:48 examines the intersection of lost love, despair and insomnia in an almost too realistic way. It is immediately obvious that the writer knew the subject matter intimately. On an artistic level, the play is tremendously well-made and expands the boundaries of the theatrical form. It will probably appeal the most to people already interested in, or experienced with, theater-or those who feel brave enough to withstand the dark barrage.
Sarah Kane is certainly not the first, nor the last, brilliant artist to kill themselves. Society seems to have an obsession with the tormented artist, and there is often little incentive to change to a more sustainable way of living when society is enjoying and re-enforcing your madness.
Suicide is a serious issue. So making a play about the subject is difficult task. But in producing 4:48 Psychosis, these students have gone to the dark parts of humanity, bringing the audience with them.
4:48 Psychosis plays in Lincoln Hall’s Studio Theater at 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 7 through Feb. 9. Tickets are $3 for students and $5 for everyone else.