4.48 Psychosis

by Sarah Kane

Overview

I dreamt that I went to the doctors, and she gave me eight minutes to live. I'd been sitting in the fucking waiting room for half an hour

4.48 Psychosis is the last play by Sarah Kane, the controversial contemporary British playwright, who died aged 28 in February 1999.

Throughout the piece the audience are plunged into the mind of an unnamed protagonist grappling with severe depression as Kane crafts an unflinching and poetic portrait of a psyche teetering on the edge of oblivion.

A quarter century from its debut, the entire original cast and creative team return to the Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Upstairs to revisit Sarah Kane's final masterpiece 25 years on.

This edition was published to coincide with the Royal Court Theatre and Royal Shakespeare Company co-production in June 2025, and the subsequent run at The Other Place, Stratford-upon-Avon.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781350579446
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	07/24/2025
Series:	Modern Plays
Edition description:	2nd ed.
Pages:	64
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.75(h) x 0.30(d)

About the Author

Sarah Kane was born in 1971. Her first play, Blasted, was produced at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs in 1995. Her second play, Phaedra's Love, was produced at the Gate Theatre in 1996. In April 1998, Cleansed was produced at the Royal Court Theatre Downstairs, and in September 1998, Crave was produced by Paines Plough and Bright Ltd at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh. Her last play, 4.48 Psychosis, premiered at the Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Upstairs in June 2000. Her short film, Skin, produced by British Screen/Channel Four, premiered in June 1997. Sarah Kane died in 1999, and is now recognised as one of the most influential voices in modern European theatre.

Editorial Reviews

Is it possible, asks the text, for a person to be born in the wrong body, at the wrong time? Yes, is the answer. But sometimes, from that agony, a great soul can wrestle something as beautiful and true as this remarkable play.” —Scotsman (4 November 2008)

“4.48 Psychosis still feels immediate, intimate and raw - if anything, the onward march of our confessional culture has made it feel even more contemporary.” —Aleks Sierz, Tribune, 7.8.09

“Sarah Kane's last play, written before she killed herself 10 years ago, has been described as a theatrical suicide note. That sells it short. It is so much more: a manifesto for living by one about to die.” —Lyn Gardner, Guardian, 25.7.09

“an extraordinary exploration of the human condition, and of psychological disintegration in particular. It exposes the terrifying clarity of the acute depressive's unblinking certainty that their existence is intolerable and can never be otherwise; the play's title refers to Kane's early morning moments of such cruel lucidity.” —Sam Marlowe, The Times, 28.7.09

“Kane's fractured poetry, lacerating in its anguish and devil-driven dark humour” —Sam Marlowe, The Times, 28.7.09

“What we get is not just a painfully funny play about one person's struggle with mental illness, but also one that scratches all the scabs of inadequacy, failure and despair that we all bear.” —Guardian

From the Publisher

As compact and beautiful as a diamond in structure--and yet the mood it inspires is as black as coal.

Time Out