Psychosis 4.48

Christina Pfrötschner (Academy of Theatre and Dance – Theatre Directing) graduated with the theatre performance PSYCHOSIS 4.48. 

Christina's interpretation of Sarah Kane’s PSYCHOSIS 4.48 (premiere was in Nov. 2021) is a performance about how systemic conventions, normative algorithms that surround us on a day-to-day basis, affect the body and mind and which traces this influence leaves behind. 

Christina: 'In my perception, the psychotic and depressive state in Sarah Kane’s play is equivalent to our extremely hysterical, superficial and profit-oriented world. Dualistic truth-seeking is the motto and the question of WHY someone thinks this way rarely stems from a candour or vulnerability, but more often from a defence of an established opinion or bias. With the Psychosis 4.48 staging, I get to the heart of my theatre: rigorous questioning'. 

Portfolio and registration of the theatre performance

Nuno Blijboom, freelance dramaturge and reviewer  
With the spectacular staging of Psychosis 4.48, Pfrötschner makes it palpable how all-encompassing, inescapable and diffuse the struggles with your mental health can be. The scenes are alternately intimate, overwhelming and grotesque, which – together with the bizarre way in which the three doctors exist in this (inner experiential) world – leads to an intriguing portrait of mental health problems as a Lynchian nightmare. This is reinforced by the soundscape of Signe Do, which constantly imbues the whole with an uncanny menace. The uncompromising manner in which Pfrötschner allows these different forms and styles to coexist and contrast results in an idiosyncratic performance that powerfully translates the unsettling experience of mental problems to the flat floor. 

Samora Bergtop, actress and teacher Academy of Theatre and Dance 
In Christina Pfrötschner’s PSYCHOSIS 4.48, the depression/psychosis is not approached as a pathological subject, but tangibly portrayed as a political matter. It is a look at our world of manipulation and lies. She creates a beautiful form of pragmatism and invites the audience to be brave. This invitation is woven further visually by an audience seating layout that is split in three, which literally represents the possibility of at least three different perspectives. As a result of her theatrical form, her analytical gaze and radical manner of staging, she is able to open up a space for contemplation and reflection that I have never seen in this way before. Theatre that does not impose an opinion, but encourages a discovery together, and takes us as an audience out of a comfortable consumption mindset.