4.48 Psychosis

4.48 Psychosis is Sarah Kane’s testamentary work. It announces her suicide, as well as the deconstruction of Aristotle’s three unities of classical drama. 

This play was an opportunity to bring together a creative team that would become a theater company. This fragmented, poetic, unplayable text required numerous stage props to allow the audience to journey through the troubled waters of madness and depression.

With composer Dominic Marion, we created a deconstructed symphony performed on electric guitar and piano, inspired by a Bach sonata originally intended for harpsichord and violin. In addition, set designer and videographer Jean-François Boisvenue agreed to create the multimedia space for this theatrical universe, a key element of the play.

In order to double the presence of the characters and create a sense of closeness to their facial expressions, cameras were perched in lamps and captured the bodies in motion, the faces, the outstretched limbs… To the point of monitoring the characters’ states of mind.

It was difficult work to integrate the music and multimedia in order to make these media fluid and natural. The challenge was ensuring that they were intertwined with the play and the rhythm of the two actresses sharing the stage.