4.48 Psychosis (Methuen Modern Plays)

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In February 1999, she killed herself at King’s College hospital, south London, three days after a previous suicide attempt.

So, my journey in this project began by trying to comprehend her previously written plays,” says Durga. Sarah Kane’s life and career came to an abrupt end, when the playwright hanged herself at a London hospital in February 1999. Only a handful of people had been allowed access to the script; neither Macdonald or Simon Kane were willing to talk to the press. Being someone who himself has struggled with mental health issues in the past, reading Sara’s works made me feel like a miniature self navigating her mind.It has been chosen as one of the best operas of 2019 by The New Yorker Magazine, and was highlighted as one of the most groundbreaking operas of the decade by The Times Literary Supplement.

Psychosis, which was performed for the first time at the Royal Court in 2000, that causes discomfort to the hilt.Old Red Lion Theatre (Tangram Theatre, 2006), Arcola Theatre (2006), the Young Vic Theatre (2009), the Barbican Theatre (TR Warszawa, Easter 2010), Access Theatre (Raw Theatre Group, Easter 2010), The Theatre Project (Off Off-Broadway - The Red Room, Summer 2010), ADC Theatre (October 2010), York Theatre Royal (March 2011), Sittingbourne Community College Theatre Company (July 2011), The Hamilton Fringe Festival at Theatre Aquarius [Black Box Fire Theatre Company, July 2011] and the George Ignatieff Theatre at University of Toronto (27–29 October 2011), Fourth Monkey Theatre Company (March 2012), Rangi Ruru Girls' School performed it in the New Zealand Theatre Federation Festival (September 2012), Crooked Pieces (Drayton Theatre London, September 2012), The Questors Theatre (January 2015), director Roza Sarkisian and Theatre Actor, Kyiv, Ukraine (2018), Anton's Well Theater Company, Oakland, California (July—August 2018), and Chico State Theater Company at California State University, Chico (December 2022). Everyone I spoke to remembers a moment at the very end of the performance, where after the play’s haunting final line, “please open the curtains”, Evans and McInnes opened a window in the roof of the theatre, allowing the June night to flood into the silence. The plot demands a deeper analysis of what mental health issues are — what’s the right way to attend to people suffering from depression; how empathetic and compassionate one needs to be; and who decides on the extent of medication and institutional care,” Shatarupa elaborates. The play changes some of the images – but all artists do that to bring the ancient imagery, changed and unchanged, into the focus of their age.