4.48 Psychosis

Kane wrote 4.48 Psychosis in the months before she killed herself; not surprisingly, her final play depicts a character's compulsion to end her own life. Graney gives Kane's highly unusual work an equally unusual staging. Throughout the 70-minute play, we stand while actors move among us or perform on three raised platforms: bedroom, bathroom and psychiatrist's office. It's captivating theater, especially the embodiment of the suicidal woman's (Stoltz) inner demons through three muselike women in bizarre dresses—with mutilated baby dolls sticking up from their backs. This often-brilliant promenade production places us smack-dab in the middle of the suicidal patient's living nightmare. With this dreamlike environment, Graney has created one of the year's most visually arresting productions.

The whole thing almost gets derailed, however, by the director's ill-conceived "rest periods," in which actors break character to chat and share tangerines with us. This directorial excess lets us off the hook—or noose, rather—from this woman's (Kane's and the character's) mind-melting ache. (Imagine Anna Karenina stopping for a fruit smoothie before hurling herself in front of that train.) They happen only twice, but the rest periods indicate a larger problem: Graney's stylish direction often serves itself more than the play. We leave impressed by the riveting staging rather than deeply moved by the character's agony; it's like a sane person inventively portraying someone else's struggle with sanity, placing us at a distance from that tortured state. But then, there's Stoltz's haunted face, anchoring the directorial flourishes with authentic emotion.—Novid Parsi