4.48 PSYCHOSIS. Ten Songs on the Art of Dying
Author - Sarah Kane
Director - Rosa Sarkisian
Design - Diana Khodyachykh
Composer - Oleksandra Malatskovska
Cast - Nina Khizhna, Oksana Cherkashina, Oleksandra Malatskovska
Curator - Nastya Djumla
“Actor Theatre” Artistic Director – Slava Zhyla
Winner of the British Council Ukraine’s Taking the Stage Competition, the production brought together artists from around the country – from Kyiv, Lviv and Kharkiv.
The cabaret production of the play 4.48 Psychosis presents in remarkable juxtaposition a pathological lust for life with the incessant, deliberate preparation for death. It is part psychogenic fugue, part bipolar ballet, and part girls-night- out in which the players pursue profound self-reflection and personal enlightenment. Here, patients encounter physicians equally in need of treatment and engage in an incendiary dance of wills at the sickbed.
Worn down by the quotidian, the players find themselves standing at a threshold, bound within the domain of experimentation and its limits. They examine their own pain – that which frees and that which fuels the desire to live – constrained by equal and opposing urges to lament and to speak pure truth. Faced with the brutal frankness of this esoteric piece of British playwriting, the producers engage the thought that normality, in truth, can be found even at the heart of psychic disturbance. It remains ambiguous as to whether ‘tis better to live life “sick”, or to die and free oneself from the madness.