Edinburgh International Festival 8th-31st August 2008

‘deft, brilliant and unnerving in the extreme.'

- Time Out on 4.48 Psychosis

‘A masterpiece of mental and emotional extremity...an act of artistic heroism.'

- The Daily Telegraph on 4.48 Psychosis

‘In order to function in this society you have to cut off at least one part of your mind. Otherwise, you'd be chronically sane in a society that's chronically insane.'

- Sarah Kane

Martin Amis once wrote that suicide is the greatest form of murder. It isn't the killing of the self but rather the killing of all the world. This end of the emotional scale is where Grzegorz Jarzyna's production of Sarah Kane's 4.48 Psychosis succeeds: there is enough ire in Magdalena Cielecka's doomed protagonist to kill galaxies.

Where the play fails is finding the polemic - the comedy in the tragedy. Suicide is rarely amusing, naturally, but what else to do with lines like ‘I dreamt I went to the doctor's and she gave me eight minutes to live - I'd been sitting in the fucking waiting room half an hour.' than laugh? Kane was angry, no doubt, but also horrifically talented and blessed with a love of dramaturgy so deep she was still able to laugh at the futility in the world and give everything in between, no matter how "ill".

At least the one-note of this play is of complex tone, and Jarzyna often creates striking and stark images, leaning heavily on David Lynch for both aural and visual influences. 4.48 will never be an easy watch or an easy write, but it will always be a challenging work by one of the most important dramatists to grace the 20^th century.

- EIF Critic Alexander Gandar

‘a remarkable, powerful piece of work'

- The Financial Times****

'an electrifying performance by the leading Polish actress Magdalena Cielecka'

- The Times ****

"Touch me, rescue me, love me... watch me vanish..." T R Warszawa's phenomenal adaptation of Sarah Kane's moving and extremely powerful 4.48 Psychosis is a frank and all-too-true insight into the desperation of a tragically tortured mind. This production also proves itself in terms of acting, direction, staging and, above all, extraordinary realism. In Magdalena Cielecka's breathtaking and outstanding portrayal of a nameless girl suffering in the advanced stages of a solitary, mentally and physically debilitating bipolar disorder, we see an actress attacking a role as though she hadn't eaten for a month.

In addition to the unparalleled acting of Cielecka and the supporting cast, the director's use of stage language really does astound. It is indeed a rarity for a play to end leaving the audience with no idea how to react, as the action seems too real to applaud as a drama. The absense of a curtain call from the cast leaves the viewer in desperation for some acknowledgement that what they had seen is indeed fiction.

One particularly poignant scene near the end shows the main character attacking her own psyche with a self-loathing monologue, comparing herself to Nazis and paedophiles as a solitary, naked 80-year-old woman walked around the stage, juxtaposing the clear fragility of the character with the aggressive language.

This performance really is an astounding experience, and a tragic, yet compelling epitaph to its playwright, the late Sarah Kane.

Scott Clair is a pupil at Holyrood High School.

- Herald Young Critic Scott Clair