ABSTRACT
The book concludes with a description and analysis of key productions of the play, which testify to the way its postdramatic form generates what we might call, after Paul Carter, material thinking (2004). That is, a creative activity that produces new ways of thinking about the world that is unique to artistic practice.
By eschewing traditional dramatic elements – such as character, plot, detailed and explicit stage directions – in favour of a provocative ambiguity that encourages experimentation, Kane’s play goes some way to acting as a catalyst for unleashing a ‘frightful’ but productive flow of creative energy that one can discern in the following exemplary productions: Arvind Gaur’s 2005 version, which staged the play as a one-woman show starring the British actress Ruth Sheard, TR Warszawa’s harrowing 2008 version, performed in Polish with English surtitles, is guided by the play’s Artaudian potentiality, that is, its potential to place the performer’s energy, sound and fury on an equal footing with language of the play (1958); and Philip Venables’ award-winning opera version of 4.48 Psychosis exploits music and multimedia in its theatrical assemblage, and, of course, the clandestine 2005 production mounted by the Belarus Free Theatre in Minsk. The Belarus government banned the play on the grounds that mental illness does not exist in a country as blessed as Belarus.
