4:48am - the time most suicides are purported to take place. Said to be the time of night when people suffering mental disorders report feeling very clear and cold, while those outside perceive them to be in their deepest delirium. The title is also a reference to C.S Lewis' The Silver Chair, in which a prince experiences one hour of sanity every night, perceived by everyone else to be an hour of madness.

The notion of who defines what is `sane' and `insane' and by what criteria is a central theme in British playwright Sarah Kane's work. According to her, "in order to function in this society you have to cut off at least one part of your mind. Otherwise, you'd be chronically sane in a society that's chronically insane". Or, as Edward Bond, an influence on Kane's work, put it: "We live rational daily lives, but our societies make grotesque weapons, economically destroy their environment, make some rich and others poor, some powerful and others impotent and in these and other ways are flagrantly unjust."  Kane saw it as a question of wanting to switch off and get on with life, yet not being able to live in a switched off state.

A sufferer of bipolar disorder, Kane could not "switch off" from the problems and contradictions of life and on February 20 1999, Britain's "most controversial playwright" (Metheun publishing house) hanged herself. Psychosis 4:48 is her last play.

It is hard to pin down what exactly the play is "about". Desislava Shpatova, director of the Bulgarian production says, "I'm still not sure what the play is about - it's obvious it's about the impossibility of life and sure seducing death. It's about memories and dreams, about personal and social horrors."

Nonetheless, this  "remarkable" play has been performed all over the world, but it has taken three years for the Bulgarian production to find a partner, as no theatre wanted to give a stage to such a risky production, said leading actress Snezhina Petrova. However, the play finally premiered at the Varna Summer Festival this year, in a suitably provocative manner - on the roof of a gallery. With critics from around the world in attendance, the company decided to display screens with subtitles in English, playing simultaneously with the dialogue. The production received critical acclaim and the subtitles have been kept for the performance's move to Sofia, providing a unique opportunity for those interested in Bulgarian theatre, who perhaps don't have  a good grasp of Bulgarian, to access this medium.
Shpatova's production has divided the Bulgarian audience. "We played in Lovetch," says Petrova "half the audience left, half were crazy about it." However, Shpatova says, "I've never received such spontaneous reaction and understanding of what I'm trying to say. There's a discussion on the internet about it, though we performed it just once in Sofia and three times in Varna."

The play is a departure from that of the usual fare of Bulgarian theatre, which Petrova says is often frightened of taking a gamble on something new for fear it won't be a success in an industry that's struggling to get by economically and fighting for audiences. It's also a "very personal project. Something we very rarely see on stage here," says Petrova. As well as departing from the normal milieu of Bulgarian theatre, the production is also very different from other interpretations of the play. This is not surprising as the `play' itself has been described as appearing more like an e.e.cummings poem than a performance piece on paper. It has no explicit number or delineation of characters and no stage directions. This made for a very long rehearsal process and required a lot from Petrova and her fellow actor Ivo Dimchev. Petrova says it took five months to make the performance, during which time three dates for the play's premier passed. "It was very hard emotionally. We could only rehearse for two hours a day. After that you got quite deep into this and its not healthy!". During this process the company tried different approaches: cabaret, monologues and a psychological approach. The result is a combination of these. It also tried to strip everything theatrical, everything from the director, whose instructions were: " I just want to forget myself in this performance."

"Usually directors are trying to take a story out of the subtext [of Psychosis 4:48], but we don't try to make a story. We just put a man and a woman together meaning that in each one of us there is this male part and this female part. We have two children who are playing the most difficult part of the text. They're an image of us, or of the future- it's open to interpretation," says Petrova.

And it seems that the audiences' interpretations provoke strong responses. "They were very touched. There were crying people and laughing people. And they were surprised they didn't feel depressed at the end - something they'd been scared of when they bought the tickets for Psychosis. But, it doesn't work this way, it doesn't cause depression," says Petrova. "It was very important to us that Sarah Kane talks so much about love, that she needs love. We took this love and tried to share it between us - me and Ivo. It's optimistic in saying that you are not alone, that there is some other part of you that you can use to help yourself by getting into dialogue with it."

So, take your seat, sit back... "relax and give the play a chance to strut its stuff - relax and stop wondering what it's all `about' - like so many strange and familiar things, Life included, the Play isn't `about', it simply is… Don't try to enjoy it, let it try to enjoy you. Don't try to understand it, let it try to understand you." (e.ecummings).

Psychosis 4:48 is at the Sfumato Theatre, 2 Dimitar Grekov street, Sofia on November 25 and 28 at 7pm. Tickets available from the box office: 943 3890 (Mon-Sat, 1-7pm), or 9875540, www.bi-let.com. Dialogue in Bulgarian, with English subtitles.