Leaving You first appears to the audience as a familiar scene between two people coming to terms with separation. But as we discover the scene is set outside everyday reality. This presents actors with a challenge: they must explore the realm of solitude while experiencing the sense of being together without the ability of direct communication. Leaving You has the potential to be a very moving scene. For us to engage and empathise with the story the actors need to be completely truthful to the emotions that flow through the dialogue. To portray this scene believably the actors must fully experience the given circumstances of this story. There is immense sadness and pain for both Lisa and Colin. Colin is unable to change his situation but is still attempting to reach Lisa to offer any sort of comfort he can. Lisa is in shock and is so desperate she considers the only recourse is suicide. Colin's intervenes to stop her and we are presented with an extremely powerful statement about the power of love reaching from one world or one reality into another. During the exploration process of rehearsal, actors might want to ask questions about death and dying and how they might personally respond to a similar situation. What might it be like for us if we were Colin? Able to experience the other person but not be visible or interact in any way? How would it feel to be powerless to help the one you love in such a desperate time? To be so close and yet so far away? How intensely would your desire be to break through the barriers that constrained you? And for Lisa, who through her grief and anger has a sense of Colin's presence. Will the actor playing Lisa relate to times when she herself might have had a very strong sense of someone's presence and work to access the truth of that experience. What is her state of mind? How alone and bereft must she be feeling? There is no doubt that Leaving You presents actors with a high degree of difficulty: They must react off each other but not appear to be in the same physical plane. Their intense desire to experience one another fully cannot be realised although they are within each other's grasp. The emotional obligations of the scene requires the actors dig deep into their own emotional reservoir. They need to create a believability about being in two different dimensions - and it is possible with great effort to bridge that gap if only for a moment. |