Suicide play splits critics
ROYAL COURT UPSTAIRS
The 25th anniversary production of Sarah Kane’s play reunites the cast, director and venue from when it was first performed one year after she took her life. It explores suicidal feelings in an experimental style. Some critics found it had lost impact, others thought it had gained in power.
[Links to full reviews are included but a number are behind paywalls and therefore may not be accessible]
5 stars ★★★★★
WhatsOnStage’s Sarah Crompton was overwhelmed. Her review analysed in detail why the play is a classic, and she lavished praise on the production: ‘The acting is intense, spare, and watchful. Every line has meaning, every movement has intent. It is an overwhelming experience.’
‘I found myself revelling in the brilliance and wit of the mind it conjured,’ wrote Time Out’s Andrzej Lukowski. ‘Madeleine Potter is gravelly and cynical; (Daniel) Evans is lighter and more morally flexible; Jo McInnes is droll and down to earth but capable of the most volcanic emotional peaks. They take us on a journey: for all the text’s abstractions, it’s quite easy to follow what’s going on here’.
Jonathan Marshall for LondonTheatre1 said: ‘The artists and creatives behind the production truly understand the work and its nature of nonlinear form. We sense all are aboard here in showcasing the swansong of a great.’
Four stars ★★★★
Holly O’Mahony for LondonTheatre noted: ‘There is more sense of ennui than psychological distress…It verges on being mechanical in places; overly conscious of protecting its original features like a precious museum artifact. And yet this allows Kane’s words, rather than the performances, to remain the posthumous star of the show.’
The Stage’s Sam Marlowe declared: ‘This is a stark, brave drama from a truly remarkable playwright; 25 years on, it still devastates.’ But not perfect: ‘The text is often overwrought, the metaphors clunky and the language self-conscious.’
Three stars ★★★
The Guardian’s Arifa Akbar described the design: ‘Jeremy Herbert’s set is a white square with functional table, chairs and an overhanging mirror that reflects the audience and the protagonist’s selves which acquire more fractured counterparts in shadow.’ She felt the production lacked impact: ‘dramatically it is sedate. You wish for something messier, louder, angrier’.
Nick Curtis of The Standard admitted: ‘I came out of the Court feeling subdued, sad and unenlightened, but writing this hours later in a bright dawn, I find the play’s combative humanity and its striking final image of escape have stayed with me.’
2 stars ★★
The Times’ Clive Davis suggested it ‘ isn’t a play at all, rather the random, agonised reflections of a mind that has passed beyond its breaking point…There’s wave upon wave of self-loathing, icy anger and mangled religiosity, yet flashes of mordant humour too…Bleakness is piled upon bleakness. But…the words begin to turn in a monotonous circle. This production is an exercise in the actor’s craft, an exquisitely wrought gilt frame surrounding an empty canvas.’
Critics’ Average Rating 3.9★
4:48 Psychosis can be seen at the Royal Court (royalcourttheatre.com) to 5 July, and then at the RSC Stratford 10-27 July 2025 (rsc.org.uk)
If you have seen this production of 4:48 Psychosis, please leave your rating and review below