English play tackles depression head-on

Kane was highly esteemed as a young dramatist by the likes of Harold Pinter and Caryl Churchill. Since her death her plays have been translated and staged around the world.

Her works have never played to large audiences in the UK and were at first dismissed by many newspaper critics. However, since her death, her plays have found a wide audience in Europe and South America. At one point in Germany, there were 17 simultaneous productions of her works.

In 2005, theatre director Dominic Dromgoole wrote that she was "without doubt the most performed new writer on the international circuit".

Performers are captivated by the challenging themes and rich language used in her works, says actress Kristina Leon, who will perform in 4:48 at Teaterverket near Stockholm's Odenplan starting on Thursday evening.

"The play deals with themes like depression, suicide and mental illness and we feel that these three themes combined are particularly interesting as there is a lot to explore and many questions arise," Leon says in a statement. "These questions turn into a paranoid game and through the search for answers, you get lost in what is real and what is not."

Kane's works are characterised by a poetic intensity, pared-down language, exploration of theatrical form and, in her earlier works, the use of extreme and violent stage action.

Her first major work was a screenplay for an 11-minute short film first screened in 1995 called Skin depicting a violent relationship between a black woman and a racist skinhead.

According to her fellow playwright and friend David Greig, the title for 4:48 derives from the time a depressed Kane would frequently wake in the morning. The play deals with severe clinical depression, a disorder which afflicted Kane.

The play was first staged in 2000, nearly one and a half years after her death. The work is Kane's most experimental, with no explicit characters or stage directions.

Actress Leon first learned about 4:48 while living in London in 2002. Since her first encounter, she has sought opportunities to stage the play, culminating in the current Stockholm performances.

"I think because of the unique and poetic language used, it would be very well suited to a native English-speaking audience, as hopefully they will find the language and content as rich as we do," she says.

For the Stockholm production, Leon is working with Italian director Samuele Caldognetto and Swedish actress Ingela Lundh.

"We would like, among other things, to show that the human being in Kane's play is overwhelmingly human and not a lunatic frothing around the mouth who doesn't know what she is talking about," she says. "A person with fundamental needs, who longs to be loved, noticed, understood, to escape the nightmare that is depression and to, in her own words, 'be free.'"

Leon added that many commit suicide as a way out when life feels too difficult. According to Leon, in 2007, 303 people committed suicide in Stockholm alone and 1,443 in Sweden.

Knowing that Kane took her own life and weaving in their own personal experiences with people who have committed suicide, the subject matter is, to say the least, highly pressing and immensely relevant, says Leon.

4:48 Psychosis by Sarah Kane will be performed in English at Stockholm's Teaterverket, Västmannagatan 54, near Odenplan T-bana station, from Thursday, September 16th to Saturday, September 18th and Wednesday, September 22nd to Saturday, September 25th at 7pm and Sunday, September 19th and Sunday, September 26th at 4:30pm. Tickets cost 100 kronor. Email [email protected] or call 0708 521 256 for further information on the show.