The play "Catatonia" confronts us with the cruelty of modern society through extreme situations and characters cast to the margins of society. Through 24 different stories and a vast number of diverse characters, it problematizes issues related to patriarchy, the judicial system, facing criminal prosecution, deprivation of liberty, prison conditions, confronting crime, personal transformation when questioning one's own guilt, and personal transformation in a state of remorse…

"Catatonia" shocks with the cruelty of its situations and dialogues, unscrupulously pointing a finger at systemic anomalies. The language of the play is fierce, cruel, but realistic. Alice Birch's dramatic writing represents a continuation of the era of Sarah Kane, Mark Ravenhill, Caryl Churchill, and other representatives of "in-your-face" dramaturgy, but viewed from a contemporary perspective.

In the upgraded dramatic template, where each scene remains a distinct "story," the connection between scenes is sensed through the themes they address—sometimes through a line of dialogue, sometimes through a given condition and atmosphere, sometimes due to the need to expand upon one or more dramatic situations, during dramatic pauses, or in what is absent yet still present.