4.48 Psychosis excerpts
4.48 Psychosis, the opera written by Philip Venables is the first ever permitted adaptation of any of Sarah Kane’s work. Excerpts from the archive video of the Royal Opera production (dir. Ted Huffman) are below. Press reviews were very positive across the board and the opera won the UK Theatre Award for Achievement in Opera, 2016.
Click here for production images
Click here for more information about the production.
Royal Opera House production weblink here.
Click here for biog and intro video about Philip Venables, or here for videos of other works.
Click here for Ted Huffman’s website.
Background
4.48 Psychosis was the astonishing final work of the radical British playwright Sarah Kane, first performed posthumously in 2000. Detailing the experience of clinical depression, the play harrowingly reveals, through poetry, anger and dark humour, an individual’s struggle to come to terms with their own psychosis, the numbers in the title referring to the time in the early morning when clarity and bleak despair strike together.
In Philip Venables’ new operatic adaptation of Kane’s play, directed by Ted Huffman, the search for love and happiness and the struggle for identity are explored through a fusion of opera with spoken and visual text. Presented at the Lyric Hammersmith, London, this is a production that promises to bring a new resonance to the last creative utterances of one of the most courageous young British writers of her generation.
Press
For more extensive press coverage, click here.
Independent ★★★★★
Guardian ★★★★
Telegraph ★★★★
Financial Times ★★★★
The Stage ★★★★
The Arts Desk ★★★★
The Upcoming ★★★★
Video excerpts
These video excerpts are for promotional purposes only, not for distribution or public posting online.