Playwright Sarah Kane killed herself at the age of 28 shortly after writing her fifth play, which offers a harrowing taste of what it’s like to live with, and die from, depression. Now two decades later, composer Philip Venables has turned 4.48 Psychosis into an opera, and the Royal Opera of London has brought it to New York as part of the seventh annual Prototype Festival. The adaptation is remarkable in its fealty to Kane’s disturbing vision, and also adds a new dimension.

Full review at DC Theatre Scene

“4.48 Psychosis,” an opera based on Sarah Kane’s play about her mental illness, featured this exchange, the words projected onto the back wall as the performers sang them: Have you made any plans? With the words projected onto the back wall, the psychiatrist had the following exchange with the patient: Have you made any plans? Take an overdose, slash my wrists then hang myself. All those things together? It couldn’t possibly be misconstrued as a cry for help.