“It’s not a metaphor, it’s a simile, but even if it were, the defining feature of a metaphor is that it’s real,” Ebony Chuukwu ‘16 bellows, inches away from the face of fellow cast member Sophiyaa Mayar ‘17.
This chilling exchange between psychiatrist and patient depicts a doctor’s failure to comprehend the exhaustion, despair, and anguish that have become the protagonist (who, while the play is not explicitly autobiographical, clearly seems to represent playwright Sarah Kane)’s only reality. Or rather, her multiple realities: Chuukwu and Mayar morph back and forth between roles, preventing the audience from associating a fixed identity with either actor. This is the essence of 4.48 Pyschosis, both in its content and its form.
Directed by Anna Banker ‘15, and performed this past weekend in Bucksbaum’s Wall Theatre, 4.48 Psychosis examines clinical depression through a collection of monologues, spoken word, movement sequences, and fragmented short scenes. It is a dazzling portrayal of Kane’s final work; tragically, she committed suicide before the play’s opening performance in 2000.
The script offers no stage direction; there are no characters; there is no plot or set: simply five women representing various elements of a mind on the verge of collapse. What we are left with is a raw, captivating emotional consciousness delivered via 45 minutes of pure intensity.
“You’re seeing some of our demons, and also some of our angels come to life,” Banker says.
This proved to be as true for the audience as it seemed to be for the cast. While Kane’s struggles throughout the play address specific issues such as feeling trapped in the wrong body, a dynamic ensemble starring Quinnita Bellows ‘15, Emma Sinai-Yunker ‘15, and Cristal Coleman ‘15, alongside Mayar and Chuukwu, presents deeply personal experiences in a way that is authentically communal. In doing so, they invite us to share in the relatable despair that accompanies loving someone who feels nothing in return, or the understandable confusion that follows being repeatedly told “it’s” not your fault…but that you allow “it.”
In typical productions of 4.48 Psychosis, characters dressed in hospital gowns hobble around dim corridors of what is surely intended to represent a psychiatric ward. Banker, however, sought to avoid such an essentialized portrayal of depression. In her view, these productions “reinforced everything Sarah Kane was trying to fight against.” Instead, her ensemble donned regular– even stylish– clothing, and the sparse set was evocatively ambiguous. Although an aura of eeriness and mania certainly existed, Banker and Co. effectively convinced the audience of depression’s very human character.
According to the production’s program, Banker also aimed to implicate oppressive patriarchal structures in contributing to depression. This proved to be a slam dunk, if only because of a Grinnellian audience’s natural ability to spot a structural inequality needle in any given avant-garde haystack. (Casting a spell of doubt over the authenticity of my own Grinnellian identity, I continually cringed at the program’s usage of terms like “auterist” and “oevre;” however, the issue resolved itself when I realized that the only reason I even noticed these words is because I had spent the entire pre-show period furiously annotating the entire page).
Nevertheless, the findings of my primary document exercise were monumentally overshadowed by the show’s impressive ability to immerse its audience in an intense sphere of raw emotion. One of the the show’s more moving monologues is delivered by Cristal Coleman, who stands on top of a chair, struggling to assure herself that “it shall pass.”
“Remember the light and believe the light,” she cries, trying in vain to fight off Chuukwu and Nayar, who claw aggressively at her legs, yelling that Christ is dead.
The ensemble’s relentless and believable representation of Kane’s anger, resignation, sorrow and hope, remind us of the ways in which our mind’s competing components threaten the notion of a cohesive consciousness.
Yet for a show centered around fragmentation and isolation, 4.48 Psychosis nonetheless makes a case for collectivity and unity as the driving force of survival. In the final scene, the ensemble links arms and joins one by one, in a resilient and courageous rendition of the chorus of “On and On” by Ghosts.
Every day the ghosts are coming for me / Every way I’m overcoming / To keep you alive / To keep you alive
Whether or not this final appeal to survival was enough to persuade us to “believe the light” is an open-ended issue. But 4.48 Psychosis’s viewers will remember the light, and were compelled to believe in something.
(Top/cover photo by Jun Taek Lee)