performance+
4.48 PSYCHOSIS by Sarah Kane
love me or kill me -
a kaleidoscopic meditation
on the unbearable intensity of life
Sarah Kane's modern classic portrays a mind in acute despair, where fragments of pain and anger are interspersed with shafts of piercing humour.
Captured Kane’s fragmented world but brought something distinctly different to the play, an Asian sensibility as the renowned Korean designer Yunsoo Lee clinical tiled walls and neon lighting takes us from a bleak hospital ward out into an imagined cityscape of the mind where speed light and murmuring incantations fill the air. Bonni Chan whispers screams and beat raps Kane’s text with her band of strolling players… three Hong Kong musicians who accompany her with a variety of sounds songs and textual volleys back and forth The production has a fabulous sense of space and pace and Chan’s use of dynamic movement and stillness enhances the already poetic storytelling She gives a virtuoso performance and the production which she also directs becomes a vision of one person’s helpless descent into madness and suicidal despair. It is a bold reimagining of Kane’s theatrical poem which also brings beauty and light where at the play’s outset there had appeared to be none.
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Awards
Performance 2016
IATC(HK) Critics Awards:
Performance of the Year,
Director of the Year,
Performer of the Year and
Scenography of the Year.
Staged Reading 2015
The Best Actress at the 8th Hong Kong Theatre Libre Awards
Nominated The Best Performance
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Critics
"Wounds and darkness are uncovered. An "In-yer-face" performance originated from cruelty and search for tenderness."
Bruce Lai Yung-hang, International Association of Theatre Critics (Hong Kong)
"A here and now relationship is constructed between Bonni Chan, Sarah Kane and the audience, constituting a powerful connection within the theatre, the arts and life."
Yu Ting, Hong Kong Economic Journal
"The provocation is both ecstatic emotionally and psychologically, leading to an experience which delves between madness and an extreme consciousness."
Natalia Chan Sui-hung (Art Critic)
Touring/Extended Performances
Aug 2017
Beijing International Women Theatre Festival (Touring)
May 2016
Hong Kong Cultural Centre (Premiere)
July 2015
Staged reading at Hong Kong Cattle Depot Theatre
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Team
Director/Performer
Bonni Chan
Musicians
Chan Wai-fat, Lau Chi-bun,
Gabriel Fung Kwok-kee
Visual Designer
Lee Yun-soo (Korea)
Costume Designer
Cheng Man-wing
Sound Designer
Chan Wai-fat
Lighting Designer
Gabriel Fung Kwok-kee