Bleakness and hope at the Buffalo Room

A rarely produced play by Sarah Kane, a British playwright who earned denunciation as well as critical acclaim for her bleak view of the human condition before her death in 1999, will be staged for two weekends at the Buffalo Room.

The venue is attached to the Westport Flea Market, 817 Westport Road, and has become a space where theater artists can put up low-budget productions with relatively short runs.

“4.48 Psychosis,” Kane’s final play, is directed by Chip Miller, Kansas City Repertory Theatre’s assistant artistic director, and produced by actor/playwright Forrest Attaway.

The show features Melissa Fennewald and Brian Huther. These two young actors performed together in “The Mistakes Madeline Made” at the Living Room in 2013. That’s where Miller saw them on stage the first time and he pictured Fennewald in “Psychosis” the minute he decided to stage the piece.

Kane took her own life when she was 28 while being treated for depression. Her plays sometimes called for startling depictions of sex and violence and, in the view of some, consistently projected a nihilistic view of humanity. British critics had never seen anything like her work before and some reacted angrily, labeling it “filth.”

But she also had her defenders, including theater reviewer Benedict Nightingale, who once wrote: “She has no less integrity than Pinter or Bond, but, God knows, I would hate to live in her head.”

“4.48 Psychosis” was Kane’s final work and was not staged until after her death. It depicts a woman, apparently incarcerated in a mental hospital, who sees death as a rational way out.

Miller, 24, said he has never directed a piece by Kane. Neither has he directed a show in Kansas City until now. Miller grew up in Kansas City, attended Rockhurst High School and studied theater at New York University.

“I find her work incredibly theatrical … and almost impossible to stage,” he said.

A few years ago Miller read the entire collection of Kane’s published plays in one sitting. What he saw in the plays surprised him: Hope.

“After years of (the plays) not making sense, I felt I understood them,” Miller said. “And I found them hopeful, which most people wouldn’t say about Sarah Kane.”

The play, written as a fragmented monologue without stage directions, allows directors to interpret the piece in any number of ways. Miller’s concept is that we’re witnessing the interior of the character’s mind in the final 60 seconds of her life.

“It’s become this lovely piece about desire, and how in the bleakest of times we always have to hope for something greater,” he said. “There always has to be hope for something greater. (The play suggests that) death has to be a better alternative to this depression that cripples us.”

This story was originally published November 12, 2014 at 7:00 AM with the headline "Bleakness and hope at the Buffalo Room."