Tom Benoit
News Editor
Jean-Michael Pion presented his Directing II project, “4.48 Psychosis.” “4.48 Psychosis” is a play by British playwright Sarah Kane, who died by suicide before the plays original premier.
“I chose this piece because I think mental health is really stigmatized,” Pion said, “I wanted to create conversation and try to de-stigmatize mental health, and I think this play has a lot of honesty about mental health, and I wanted to create conversation by putting it onstage.”
Pion discussed the themes of the play, “the whole play is an exploration of the mental health care system…depression, it’s just text on a page.” Pion also added that while he was allotted a total of three characters, Pion chose two, “in order to support my directorial vision.”
Rehearsals for the piece were challenging, Pion said. “One of my actors [Laughlin Hentz] actually went into quarantine four times during our process…it was a lot,” Pion said. “It was challenging because we couldn’t be in a room and start blocking and start putting movement and all that stuff,” Pion said.
Pion added that in lieu of in-person rehearsals, Pion used the time to “delve into the text.” “While it was a challenge, I think it actually did help too, obviously it’s not ideal,” Pion said.
Junior Cassidy Doherty also discussed the difficulty of rehearsals, “[Hentz] was in quarantine for like five weeks, so we had a lot of rehearsal on Zoom.”
Doherty also talked about the process of putting together the show, “It was intense, difficult but also very rewarding, the message is really good to put out…as an actor, it was really awesome to get to do this piece, the [piece is] just super out of your comfort zone, just way out there.”
“4.48 Psychosis” was performed in person and over live-stream. Laughlin Hentz was not available for comment.
Tom Benoit can be contacted at:
tbenoit@kscequinox.com
