By Delia Macpherson, Staff Contributor
In 1999, English playwright Sarah Kane hung herself in the bathroom of a hospital. The last thing she wrote was a book of poems about the mentally insane called 4.48 Psychosis.
Director Simon Bloom took the poems and turned them into a play. He gave it characters, stage direction and blocking. Bloom, a fourth-year student at the University of King’s College, said it was a collaborative effort.
“A lot of it came out through discussion with the actors,” says Bloom. “We would sit down and look at a scene and say, ‘What’s actually going on in the scene? What point is she trying to express in this particular fragment?’”
Set in a hospital room inside Sarah Kane’s mind, the floor was painted white and four large white sheets hung from the ceiling. The play was presented with the audience members completely surrounding the actors in a square, with the action in the middle.
“Some of the scenes take place in the real world and some take place, as (Kane) says, ‘A consolidated consciousness resides in a darkened banqueting hall near the ceiling of the mind.’”
Ella Bedard took on Bloom’s interpretation of Sarah Kane. Her performance was extremely well delivered. Playing someone in a mental institute can easily be over-acted but Bedard was very natural. Bedard provided her audience with insight into the mind of a person with a mental health problem. There is a theory that everyone has this dark place deep inside. Bedard most certainly tapped in to hers with honesty.
The dialogue was captivating because it was unsettlingly relatable.
“I am guilty. I have lost interest in other people. I can’t eat. I cannot overcome my loneliness, my fear, my disgust. My hips are too big. I dislike the look of my genitals.”
Jennalee Desjardins and Lewis Wynne-Jones mostly played the doctors who worked with Kane in the mental institution. They focused a lot of attention on physicalizing how Kane perceived them. At one point they wore white masks made of plaster on the tops of their heads and pulled white lab coats over their faces. The result was two scurrying, creature-like, starch white, hunched over “doctors”. They had a clip-board that they passed back and forth. Their fingers curled and they walked on the heels of their feet. They were absolutely terrifying.
“It was awesome,” says Bloom. “I happened to get to work with Louis, Ella and Jennalee and each one of them has their own individual strengths. They’re all multitalented. That’s what’s so amazing about them – they can do both the movement and the acting.”
The lighting in the show was particularly interesting. Florescent, hospital-looking lights hung from the ceiling, lighting the entire room up brightly. The audience was completely visible. Not just a little bit. It was as if we were all sitting in a hospital room watching this sick woman who could feel all our eyes on her. So effective!
The lighting changed back and forth from dark with spotlights in the centre to bright fluorescents. Each time this happened, the audience members cringed slightly while their eyes adjusted.
One scene that was particularly difficult to watch was when Jennalee and Ella stood in the centre a foot or so a part and both were lit by two different spotlights. Jennalee played “Ella’s body”, while Ella played her mind. Ella began saying violent words: “Flicker, slash, burn, dab, punch, ring.”
She repeated the same words over and over. Jennalee, in the mean time, had choreographed specific body movements and jerks to each word. Ella spoke faster and faster. Jennalee’s body is thrashed about.
The audience could feel the pain and relentlessness and lack of control of the mind through a physicalizing. So fascinating. It gave me chills.
“I wanted to try and capture the feeling when you’re lying in a hospital bed and you look up and you see all these healthy people standing around you,” says Bloom. “It created a really interesting dynamic.”
4.48 Psychosis was the best piece of theatre I have seen in months. It took risks and was set in a controversial environment that made you uncomfortable, which captivated the audience.
“The play is uncompromising,” adds Bloom. “It shows you depression and it shows you illness and it doesn’t pull any punches.”
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