This catastrophe was preventable but no-one saw it coming. Haley had left work so she could look after the baby. This possibly suited Samuel more than it did Haley. And she appears not to have any outside help. We might ask how Samuel could not have realised the extent of Haley's depression or anxiety. Did he just think it would get better over time by itself? Was Haley so exhausted that she did not think she could ask for help? Was there financial pressure that prevented Haley from using child care ort getting some in-home support? The material of this scene requires actors to go to the extremis of human emotions. There are few situations one can imagine more terrifying or painful for a parent. The scene asks actors to look at obligations that are extreme: extreme tiredness - exhaustion, extreme anxiety, extreme fear, extreme shock, extreme anger etc etc. There are no half measures with scene; so much so that the scene should probably not be attempted unless the actors are fully prepared to explore the extremity of the emotions required. It is completely natural that actors will resist playing this scene for real; either because they are completely challenged by the intensity or because there is too much natural resistance to feel pain. People do not normally put pain over pleasure as a first choice preference but in this case the actors will need to choose to experience pain on some level to do justice to the scene. What sort of person suffers post natal depression? Can it happen to anyone? Are there typical symptoms or character traits that increase the likelihood of someone experiencing PND? The actor playing Haley will certainly need to do some research on this. A critical part of the exploration of the emotional obligations will focus on the affects on the body of exhaustion form lack of sleep. Deprivation of sleep over extended periods has a debilitating affect on the body and the mind. Haley tries to explain this to Samuel but of course he has no room for empathy with his daughter's dead body in his arms. Perhaps if Samuel had a little more empathy this tragedy might have been avoided. It's hard to say. But it is important from the actor's point of view to not judge either character and brand either one as guilty or bad. They are perhaps a little ignorant or naive and made a set of decisions along the way that exacerbated Haley's plight. In either case a set of circumstances occurred and a set of decisions were made that brought them to this point. For the actors, making choices that support the integrity of the circumstances that led up to Lucy-Lou's demise is the ultimate acting challenge. To create believable performances the actors will need to research the reported aspects of this phenomenon and then find ways of internalising and personalising the experience in order to act 'as if' this is happening to them: a tough assignment in any one's book, but well worth the effort.
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