Every morning at 4.48 a.m. the effect of the psychiatric drugs starts wearing off, and, for a short period of time, the mind is able to articulate clear thoughts. After this brief episode, psychotic disorders and further medication regain control over consciousness until the next morning. Fragments from conversations appear, then, series of numbers, cascades of words, diagnoses, therapeutic talks, and, again and again, visions of attempted suicide. In »4.48 Psychosis«, Sarah Kane, who is one of the most important dramatists of the 20th century, offers insight into a repeatedly dissociating consciousness which is caught up in realms of depression, the desperate search for love, and excessive desires. Kane’s literary highly condensed text is flooded with images and associations that tell of a mental patient’s struggles and disintegration. At the same time, her play can be read as the uncompromising description of the fragmentation of the modern subject and perspective.

Sarah Kane wrote »4.48 Psychosis« only a few months before committing suicide in 1999.

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