I too strongly recommend this production.
Anamaria Marinca, a Romanian actor, performs the play alone. She stands in the same spot on the stage throughout, just making the odd appropriate hand gesture and very occasionally crouching down on the rare occasions when she goes into a shout.
The performance opens with Anamaria staring, fixedly and silently, for quite a long time, occasionally glancing one way or another. When she finally speaks the opening line "But you have friends" it seems to have the force of an explosion. Similar pauses are used to great effect at various points throughout. Most of the time she delivers the text in a tone of controlled anger, conveying a real sense of the stress of living with persistent chronic depression. Just a couple of times she breaks into angry shouts. She adopts a tone of cheerfulness (for both doctor and patient) for a scene where the main character mischievously talks to a patronising doctor about her self-harming. She adopts differing accents and tones of voice when portraying doctors, but in other two-handed scenes she simply maintains a constant tone and timbre, giving the impression of having a conversation with herself. Very effective. The 'to...' wish-list is delivered as an assertive series of demands.
In Anamaria's portrayal, the therapist and patient scene is a watershed. From the moment that the therapist tells the main character they can no longer treat her, but assures her that she'll be all right (after snapping into a frustrated shout when they say 'I hate ths f**king job'), Anamaria switches for the rest of the play to a tone of sad resignation. Her interpretation makes it clear that that rejection by the therapist is the point where the main character finally, inexorably, gives up hope and resolves to commit suicide.
It is a measure of Anamaria's achievement that she takes the play and makes it her own. Magnificent.
The programme includes an excellent piece about Sarah's work by the director, Christian Benedetti, who has directed several of her plays in his native France and clearly has a deep passion for her :
"She demands that we find new means of representation, challenging us to find expression of the reality of our lives. And in this she is one of the great playwrights of the last century...Directing 4.48 is in some way for me like sending a letter in reply to the many that she has sent to me through her plays...the temptation of a winking eye."
