By Penn Bullock

Erin Joy Schmidt plays doctor to Katherine Amadeo’s tortured mental patient in 4.48 Psychosis Photo: Paul Tei

4.48 Psychosis is a pure distillation of emo. It’s as benighted as can be, and there’s a “cutting” scene. But it was written in 1999, before emo became a fashion statement, a genre of music, and the psychosocial linchpin of millions of teenagers’ existences.

The playwright is Sarah Kane. In the ’90s, she made her name with violently expressionistic productions. Her debut work, Blasted, brought cannibalism and anal rape to the Royal Court Theatre in London. 4.48 Psychosis was her last work, written in the months before her suicide.

She bequeathed to the world a formless script: with no stage directions or characters; 4.48 Psychosis is a kind of Rorschach test for directors. Fresh from his two acting victories at the Carbonells, director Paul Tei, along with Antonio and Katherine Amadeo, turn this blot into a coherent plot for the Naked Stage. They divide the script among three characters: a suicidal writer (the fictional Kane), her doctor, and her lesbian lover. Given the threadbare script, the finished product is extraordinarily detailed.

The set is appointed with a TV and upside-down furniture on the ceiling, a big bed at a tilt, innumerable bottles of prescription drugs, and even a toilet into which actress Katherine Amadeo, playing the depressive protagonist, shall piss. The lighting transforms the stage into a dynamic abyss. Lachrymose rock and ambient songs sometimes play over the action, augmenting it. Creepy babble is played over the speakers. Strong sounds, like the thrashing open of a shower curtain or the thrusting of a chair across the stage, are jarring enough to make the audience jump from their seats. There is copious nudity, masturbation, and lesbian lovemaking.

Kim Ehly and Katherine Amadeo engage in a little horizontal bop in 4.48 Psychosis Photo: Paul Tei

But the special effects and racy gimmicks can’t conceal that 4.48 Psychosis is tiresome. There are piles of lugubrious monologue, which Mrs. Amadeo eats up and sprays on the audience like a wood-chipper. There are too many grandiloquent lamentations: “the foul magic of this engine of sorcery,” “behold the eunuch of castrated thought,” “the chicken’s still dancing, the chicken won’t stop,” “insoluble hoping cannot help me,” and finally, “there’s no meaning to life.” All of this leaves the impression of a mind doomed to circumlocution. The last word belongs to the fictional Kane herself. In session with her doctor, she declares: “I have nothing to say about my illness.”

This is true.

4.48 Psychosis runs through May 18 at Naked Stage at the Pelican Theatre on the campus of Barry University, 11300 NE 2nd Avenue in Miami Shores. Showtimes: Thursday – Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 p.m. Tickets $12-$25. Call 1-866-811-4111or visit www.nakedstage.org.