Mental illness is no laughing matter (although we laughed, in parts) but yes, it’s fascinating to watch, when viewed from a safe distance. Sprawled bare-footed on a grubby bedsit couch is Alex, our very own 'girl interrupted'. She swigs from a cheap-looking bottle of red wine and tells us she is better now, that she’s ready to come clean. She talks about the pills, how she screamed and spat and pulled her hair out, and she rattles off the formula they teach you for coping with depression: “Don’t drink too much, don’t think too much, and don’t expect other people to get it.” When she promises to divulge her poisonous thoughts, we are immediately rapt in the fascinations of this self-confessed “repulsive” creature - for we watched her like a caged animal, in the Sunday's Child production of Kiss Me and You Will See How Important I Am.

The play is titled after a quote from poet Sylvia Plath’s unabridged journals of 1950 – 1962 in which she writes: “I’m important. If only you get to know me you will see how important I am. Look into my eyes. Kiss me, and you will see how important I am.” In this play we meet four young people struggling to affirm their importance (to us, themselves and each other it seems), who are yearning for that kiss, wanting to be heard and understood, and wanting to be wanted. Alex takes her pills (sometimes more than she should) and tries not to act too crazy, while James has anger management problems and is possibly confused about his sexuality; Christopher is socially inept because of his autism, and Cleo wants some sort of reconstructive surgery on her vagina.

Against David Doyle’s simple blue backdrop adorned with a poster of Barack Obama captioned ‘No We Can’t’, the four characters spew some impressive verbal venom from their supposedly messed up minds. Most of what was said, naturally, was an incredibly lucid string of “well chosen, devastating words”, to borrow the writer’s (Eva O’Connor, who also performs) own fitting description – with the use of a microphone on one side of the stage allowing for a more measured and resonant delivery of each of their short monologues.

What spoke loudest, however, were the two dance scenes brilliantly choreographed by Elspeth McKever (Cleo) and stunningly performed by the two female and two male characters respectively. The dance between James (Jamal Hue-Bonner) and Christopher (Dan Cummins) deserves particular mention for its compelling emotional charge and sheer elegance. Underpinned by strong nuances of suppressed sexual passion, the interplay between the two men oscillated fluidly from aggression to resistance to submission and back again, making this scene one of the most powerful and memorable forms of expression in the piece.

Other interesting moments included James’ call for a minute’s silence to the beat of a metronome, which was silenced prematurely by the extraordinarily articulate and impressively autistic blonde boy in the shorts (Cummins) who decided, midway through the ticking silence, that he was ready to talk (about the colour green, his sister’s arm and how classical music calms him). Interjections like this added variety to the pace of the play, never allowing us to feel too comfortable for too long (and a few things went bang in the bedsit fridge on the night of review which had the same effect, whether or not it was intended).

Sophie Fuller’s taut direction ensured the combination of theatre, music and dance without as much as a trace of fracture throughout. While McKever appeared more comfortable in her skin as a dancer rather than an actor, O’Connor held a continual resoluteness in her performance throughout (and a noticeably steady hand in applying some heavy-duty eyeliner in the play’s opening scene). Cummins’ performance as Christopher demonstrated some incredible attention to detail in both the verbal and physical characteristics with which he played his character, in particular the sheepishly apologetic expression he wore, the wringing of his hands and the quasi-mechanized way in which he spoke. Hue-Bonner played James with solid composure and adeptly captured the dichotomy of aggression and affection in his character.

The third of O’Connor’s projects, Kiss Me and You Will See How Important I Am is a valiant and honest play that is eloquent in its language, visually striking, and utterly fascinating. It speaks simply and clearly about topics so trodden with age-old taboos that they have become almost inexpressible: depression, suicide, recovery and relapse. I couldn’t help but wonder whether our fascination was in fact rooted in the familiarly of it, for many of us know of somebody grappling in the darkness of depression, or someone who took their own life as a result of it. Sunday’s Child are making work about it, and that has to be progress.

Jennifer Lee holds an MPhil in Theatre and Performance and is currently completing her PhD thesis.