The rhythm of Grzegorz Jarzyna’s production is determined by dry announcements of the passing hours and days voiced by an external speaker. This countdown leads us to the moment of death: 4.48 is the time at which the suicide takes place. The set design is sterile. Throughout the performance, a wireframe wall moves across the stage to the left, symbolizing the crossing to “the other side”, towards death.
The space of action is ambiguous: it is neither a hospital, nor an apartment, or maybe, on the contrary – it is both. There is a table in the middle; one can’t help but associate it with an operating table, but the actress nevertheless sits down to it to have a conversation, her arms resting on top of it. The chairs are completely ordinary, except one of them looks like a wheelchair. The green tiled wall at the back has, on one side – a row of washbasins mounted to it and on the other – a toilet. This arrangement looks more like an artistic composition than a functional space – wrote Karolina Maciejaszek for Didaskalia magazine ( 2002, no. 47)
The performance under Grzegorz Jarzyna’s direction is very effective. His Psychosis 4.48 is said to include some of the most poignant scenes created by him up to that point: the metaphorical scene, “when faces, walls, and the furniture momentarily turn into the screens of a cosmic computer, and streams of numbers run across them chaotically, pause, and disperse, only to join the relentless race” (Jacek Sieradzki, Polityka, 2002, no. 8), and, most of all, Magdalena Cielecka’s disturbing monologue in which:
standing at the front of the stage, she shouts directly in the viewers’ faces: “Validate me/ Witness me/ See me/ Love me!” Nobody responds, again. She turns back and runs towards the back wall, which she hits with such an impact that red blood stains are left on its grey surface. She comes back towards us, stumbling. Red streaks run down her naked body. She shouts again. It’s hopeless, desperate. (Karolina Maciejaszek, Didaskalia 2002, nr 47).
This performance in fact owes its impact mostly to Magdalena Cielecka, who plays the main role.
Jarzyna leads Magdalena Cielecka down the most difficult path as he tries to reduce the theatricality of her stage presence to the minimum. Each word and gesture ought to result from her inner need and sensitivity; the actress’s task is very similar to performing a monodrama. – wrote Piotr Gruszczyński (Tygodnik Powszechny, 2002, no. 9).
Cielecka ultimately does not try to explain her character’s behaviour or search for her psychological motifs. She strips her existence bare, and shows the blood that runs underneath. She is the accusation, the proof that the world has escaped order – wrote Roman Pawłowski (Gazeta Wyborcza, 25.02.2002).