FOUR FOUR EIGHT by Emergency Stairs

“The chicken’s still dancing“

Reviewer: Edward Eng
Performance: 19 February 2019

You’re going to die. Every one of your friends will die. So will your crush. So will the strange man from the office across yours who give you a pat on the back sometimes.

I would be lying if I said Sarah Kane’s work doesn’t move me. Playwright Simon Stephens once said at a talk I attended that this is because Kane’s abjection emphasises her humanity, particularly in Cleansed and Crave where the tenderness between nuclear fallout and ultraviolence is quite distinct.

Her play 4.48 Psychosis, on the other hand, is a different emotional creature. It is Kane’s suicide note. Which makes adaptation odd: is it not exploitative? Why would anyone stage a suicide note?

Artist Liu Xiaoyi mostly overcomes these issues by personally reclaiming the narrative and structure. In FOUR FOUR EIGHT, he overlays the abstraction of Kane’s script on the grounded humanity of his own life. Since Liu is physically present in the production, FOUR FOUR EIGHT feels less suicidal and more existential.

It starts with Liu’s playful emails to his audience: one talks about his childhood while another snapshots a prosaic lift landing in a Workers’ Party-held constituency.

The performance itself is a sort of ‘choose your own (emotional) adventure’ through Esplanade that extends this existential-playfulness. We go to the rooftop, the waterfront, the Exciseman Bar (where Liu has set up camp), and a secret corridor that he enjoys. A little notebook is provided as a guide. It splices Kane’s original text and contains exercises inspired by it.

The places we go to feel like a jigsaw puzzle of one’s life. I am surprisingly touched by the secret corridor: I draw it as a softly-lit oasis. The sounds of the nearby escalator and plant room feel like an iron lung near the sea.

But the private room where Liu resides is strange: we get a drink from the bar and sit down to watch Liu and his belongings. The sudden jump here after pensively walking through public spaces makes this room seem almost pornographic. This is partly because the $58 ticket price, the exquisitely-bound notebook and the bar setting commodify the performance. The glass of nice whisky feels extraneous, as though it is an attempt to justify the performance, rather than the other way round. It is among the various ‘package-products’ of the performance that seem too disparate to honestly express Liu’s existentialism.

Watching Liu, I come to see how this honesty is important, because there are affecting moments in the room. Liu holds a stranger’s shoulder. Another audience member cries and he does too. One of the exercises is to mail a letter to a person of your choice, on the premise that today is the last day of your life.

4.48 Psychosis is most affecting when it is allowed to hold an audience in its spell. The author’s last moments yearning for human connection are heartbreaking. Liu captures these moments well, but if he can better limit the distractions, FOUR FOUR EIGHT has the potential for magic.