4.48 Psychosis (Methuen Modern Plays)

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Echoing similar thoughts, Shatarupa says, “There were days when I would have to take a break after the rehearsals and probably engage in some mundane and mindless things just to take my attention off the script. 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. Indian director Arvind Gaur performed this play as a one-woman show with British actress Ruth Sheard in 2005. Psychosis itself is coming up for two decades old; this month, an operatic adaptation by composer Philip Venables will open at the Royal Opera House, the first of its kind. 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.

So, my journey in this project began by trying to comprehend her previously written plays,” says Durga. She was there to talk about her plays – Blasted, which had scandalised and horrified the critical establishment back in 1995, and her equally mould-breaking dramas Cleansed and Crave, both of which had opened earlier that year. Bringing out my own pain and emotions became pertinent to be honest with the role I essayed on stage,” she explains. This dilemma is possibly one of the reasons that over the years theatremakers around the world have avoided staging British playwright-director Sarah Kane’s enigmatic yet distressing plays. Psychosis was written throughout the autumn and winter of 1998-99 as Kane battled with one of her recurrent bouts of depression.Psychosis heralds a break with all theatrical conventions–the play reads more like a poem, without character distinctions or stage directions –and even presents much of Kane’s personal medical history–her struggle with antidepressants, suicidal tendencies and her philosophical wrestling with the idea of mortality. In the arts, we are so used to discourses on mental health being measured, subtle or expressed only in parts that any deviation seems out of the mould, ambitious or risky. There were a few who left the play in the beginning itself, because it was just too much to cope with it mentally.

Charles Spencer of the Telegraph said "it is impossible not to view it as a deeply personal howl of pain. Sarah Kane’s life and career came to an abrupt end, when the playwright hanged herself at a London hospital in February 1999.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. Sarah Kane burst on the London stage at the age of 24, in a media frenzy of scorn, derision and distaste for her work.

It was crucial to Kane to show depression with all the accuracy she could summon, he adds: “Mental illness is so often sentimentalised, or portrayed as madness – I hate that word. Its language varies between dialogues, confessions and contemplative poetic monologues reminiscent of schizophasia.A great deal of ink has been spilled on Kane’s too-short life and death, and not nearly enough on the story of the play itself. Stage productions of the play vary greatly, therefore, with between one and several actors in performance; the original production featured three actors.