The discussion around mental health has moved on, markedly and mercifully, in the 25 years since the premiere of this final play from Sarah Kane, who took her own life the year before 4.48 Psychosis premiered at the Royal Court’s intimate upstairs venue. A quarter of a century on, the original cast and creative team reunite for this 70-minute howl of existential anguish – and it is fascinating to note the career trajectory of one of this trio of performers. Daniel Evans, a double Olivier Award-winning actor, is now none other than the co-Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Evans lines up alongside Jo McInnes and Madeleine Potter, to perform a script that is organized into 24 loose sections without any characters or stage directions. It’s an agonising portrait of a single disintegrating psyche, a soul in crisis, wracked by the clinical depression that haunted Kane herself.
Suicide ideation fills the scenes, as the actors lie, sit or stand upon a white square of stage space with a large mirror hanging above it. The angling of the mirror is such that the trio often appear suspended in mid-air, a highly apt visual metaphor for this other-worldly non-linear non-narrative. The attention to such fine details in James Macdonald’s rich production is exquisite.
The text takes us through the filling-in of a doctor’s mental health questionnaire – ‘I do not want to die… I do not want to live’ – and offers fragments of conversation with myriad medical professionals. “There’s not a drug on earth can make life meaningful”, says Potter, as she rails against taking medication for fear of it blunting her creativity. Nonetheless, she recounts her journey through a number of anti-depressants and anti-psychotics, in a variety of doses and with a panoply of side effects.
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Riveting, distressing facets of a single mind are presented by the three performers. McInnes offers raw anger-cum-mania; Potter’s line is withdrawn quietness; whereas Evans presents a beguiling and sometimes dead-eyed interiority. All three are splendid, but this serves as a potent reminder of what a powerful actor Evans is. He played Edward II at the RSC earlier this year and it is very much hoped that he graces our stages again before too long.
When the piece premiered in 2000, trigger warnings were still a far-off invention, so I do not envy the Royal Court grappling with this issue for this play now. The great irony is that it is those who have experienced mental health difficulties of their own who will most appreciate this abstract but ferocious work.
To 5th July (royalcourttheatre.com), then at The Other Place, RSC, Stratford-upon-Avon, 10th-27th July (rsc.org.uk)
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