Supporting Notes
Name: James Clack
Candidate Number: 5020
Centre Number: 26218
Practitioner: Artaud
Script: '4:48 Psychosis' by Sarah Kane
Chosen Skill: Acting
Section 1
Antonin Artaud
Born in 1896, Artaud was a 20th century French theatre director, actor, playwright and poet.
With a troubled early life, falling ill with meningitis, he became independent and isolated.
This influenced his aim to transform theatre with his work, commonly known as the
‘Theatre of Cruelty’. He was a member of the 1920s surrealist movement, and explored
ways of communicating personal, intimate experiences using surreal and erratic fantasies.
As a practitioner, he had many aims for his audience. His main objective was to make his
audience question themselves after ‘experiencing’ one of his pieces, which were to reflect
life: ‘I cannot conceive any work of art as having a separate existence from life itself’
(Antonin Artaud, The Theatre and Its Double). He wanted to reflect life and show the
intensity and truth of life, with his actors representing an inner state of mind, allowing the
audience to empathise with the strong emotion on stage. Artaud’s anticipations and goals
for his work greatly differed from western theatrical conventions, moving away from the
idea of ‘entertainment’.
For our selected piece, we decided to use Artaud as our practitioner. We feel that this style
of acting would be most relevant to the piece, believing it to be the style Sarah Kane
intended it to be performed in. Utilising the 'Theatre of Cruelty' aspect of the style would
exaggerate the performance’s extreme and repulsive features, alongside our intense
extracts chosen.
Sarah Kane & ‘4:48 Psychosis’
4.48 Psychosis was first shown at Royal Court's Jerwood Theatre almost two years after
Sarah Kane’s death, deeply exploring clinical depression, a serious factor in Kane’s life, as
the play was her final ‘swansong’ before her death. The play doesn’t involve written
characters or stage directions, which allows a more open interpretation. The play covers
many of Artaud’s aims, providing a clear insight into Sarah Kane’s mind, the mind of a victim
of severe clinical depression. The theme of ‘cruelty’ is prominent due to explicit themes
such as self-harm, suicide and depression, shocking the audience. Therefore, we feel that
using Artaud as our practitioner with the ‘Theatre of Cruelty’ would be most relevant and
utilises the extreme style intended by Kane. Our key theatrical aims are similar to Kane’s, to
shock and show the audience her ‘inner mind’, through use of Artaud’s techniques.
