4.48 Psychosis

+Institute [Experimental Arts] presents the extremely successful performance "4.48 Psychosis", a play by British playwright Sarah Kane.

The play is written from the point of view of someone with severe clinical depression, a disorder from which Kane suffered. A repeated motif in the play is "serial sevens": counting down from one hundred by sevens, a bedside test often used by psychiatrists to test for loss of concentration or memory. According to her friend and fellow-playwright David Greig, the title of the play derives from the time, 4:48 a.m., when Kane, in her depressed state often woke. Greig considered the play to be 'perhaps uniquely painful in that it appears to have been written in the almost certain knowledge that it would be performed posthumously.' Some critics have had difficulty in distinguishing the play from the reality of Kane's life. Michael Billington of The Guardian newspaper asked, "How on earth do you award aesthetic points to a 75-minute suicide note?"

Directed by Tasos Sagris

(in Greek)