Co-written with Conor Green, with songs by Andrew Cull Synopsis Samantha and Angie are identical twin teenaged girls with divergent interests and talents. Samantha is a gifted young scientist. Angie has an artistic soul and is a gifted musician. Recently the girls have been fighting and Sam has moved permanently into the guest room. As their parents Ron and Natasha bustle to get the girls to the school talent show where Angela will premiere her newest song, Samantha, complaining of a headache, is stricken by an aneurism. An emergency surgery leaves her unconscious in a precarious state of health, her breathing assisted by machines. As the family reels in shock with the potential loss of their daughter, Angie adopts her sister’s personality, insisting on sleeping in Samantha’s bed, wearing her clothes, and manifesting Samantha’s behaviour, while retaining none of her own distinctive personality. Angie, exhibiting Samantha’s scientific curiosity and aptitude, begins to research her condition, pursuing the surgeon, Ian, with questions about the role of the brain and of genetics in determining consciousness and identity. The family is divided. Natasha, a psychiatrist, finds Angie’s behaviour inappropriate. As the pressure mounts on Natasha, her husband, longing to connect with his unconscious daughter, becomes increasingly convinced that Angie is Sam, while the surgeon who comforts them is at a loss to explain why Samantha’s “act” is so convincing. As Samantha’s health fails, Angie seeks to find a way to express what she is going through and to reconcile the family. When the decision to release Sam must finally be made, the family grieves the loss of their daughter, even as they are given a strange opportunity to say farewell through Angie. As Sam’s body is taken off life slips away, Angie is restored to herself. Soul Alone explores the nature of the soul, identity, consciousness, and reality in the context of a family in shock from a personal tragedy.
Soul Alone began as a question about the brain’s relationship to identity and as the conveyer of reality. This question spurred a development project at the National Theatre School in 2003. The resulting performance, was a collaborative effort, created by Director Anthony Black, actors Conor Green, Chip, Chuipka, Danielle Desormeaux, and Laura Teasdale, based on a sory concept by Green and Black. Soul Alone was then extensively re-worked and re-written by Green and Black, with support from PARC, 2b theatre company and Neptune Theatre, and was produced by Neptune in association with 2b in February of 2006.
Workshop iteration produced at the National Theatre School of Canada, 2003 Premiered at Neptune Theatre in association with 2b theatre company, 2006