Of Course It's Dark: Factory 449's 4.48 Psychosis
Randa Tawil, Brian Hemmingsen, Stacy Whittle, Lisa Hodsoll, Sara Barker, David Lamont Wilson, Cesar Guadamuz, Karin Rosnizeck, Mary Suib, and Julie Roundtree in 4.48 Psychosis. Photo by Marc Anthony.
Kane's text lacks stage directions or character delineations. It is less a dramatic work than a fevered brain-dump of the contents of a deeply depressed mind, the late night stream of consciousness of a young woman talking frankly about her impending suicide and the failure of family, friends, or modern medicine to fix whatever is wrong with her.
In other words, it feels not unlike a suicide note.
The lack of structure imposed by the writer allows any company a great deal of leeway in how the material is approached. It has been performed by varying numbers of actors, and the current production, the inaugural one by the brand new, artist-run Factory 449 company, employs ten, expanding on the cast of six that presented it at this year's Capital Fringe Festival (where it won top festival honors for Best Drama and Best Overall Production). Director John Moletress arrays his cast standing on chairs, each lit from above with harsh hanging lights that cast exaggerated and frightening shadows on their faces. The subject matter is horrific, so Moletress and lighting designer Eric Grims quite effectively present it as horror, aided by sound design and compositions from Ryan Keebaugh that strike eerie chords and chimes, or the tension-building amplified hum of fluorescent lights. This is all augmented by more than a dozen television screens, playing disturbing news clips, anti-depressant pharmaceutical commercials, or short film clips made with the cast themselves.
A work so wide open to interpretation is a challenge to the imagination, and the ways in which Factory 449 rise up to meet it are impressive. Moletress uses his large cast in inventive ways, sometimes pitting one or two in conversation with one another, sometimes all of them delivering sections in unison, sometimes bouncing a monologue around the stage from person to person. At other times, one actor will speak, while the others whisper repeated phrases in a manic chatter underneath, effectively recreating a mind overcome with the sound of too many voices. The precision and timing required is daunting; the cast is called upon to be something like a choir singing complex counterpoint. Occasional pantomime and repetitive motion sometimes take the production near to a kind of brutish modern dance.
It is a credit to Kane's immense talent that the fascination of this play never descends into morbid curiosity. Her words hold a great deal of emotional power, swinging from devastated and resigned sadness to searing rage. One monologue in particular, delivered by Brian Hemmingson, induces chills through its bare, vicious anger. And Sara Barker, front and center in what is as close as this production provides to a "lead" role, brings both Kane's desperation and her dark humor brilliantly to life — at one point, after outlining her three-point plan for killing herself via pills, slit wrists, and hanging, she wryly adds that these extreme measures "couldn't possibly be construed as a cry for help." But more than all of this emotional impact, it's a gorgeous and poetic work of language, a violent barrage of beautifully arranged words.
Kane offers no solace or guidebook to the recovery that she never found. Perhaps she was seeking to reach out and tell others who felt as lost as she did that they were not alone, but it seems more likely that this was simply the final cry of despair, expressed the only way she knew how. Trying to assign it greater purpose may be a futile — and unnecessary — exercise: it is deeply moving simply as an act of pure expression and wordsmithing, and Factory 449's expert production intensifies that profound effect.
Factory 449's 4.48 Psychosis continues at the Warehouse until October 25, with performances on on Thursdays-Sundays (and one extra performance on Monday, October 19). Tickets are $20.