Review: Georgia Ensemble’s ‘Leave Your Fears Here’ blurs line between performance and life

Georgia Ensemble Theatre’s Leave Your Fears Here is a powerful, moving piece of autobiography from writer-actor James Morrison, a performer best known for his TV work in 24 and Twin Peaks: The Return.

The work, which is onstage at the small black box Act3 Playhouse in Sandy Springs through January 26, focuses on Morrison’s experiences as a father to a young son named Seamus, diagnosed and treated for years for a rare brain cancer called medulloblastoma.

Leave Your Fears Here works spectacularly well as a piece of personal storytelling because Morrison is an incredible performer, and Robert Egan’s direction of the one-person piece is tight. 

Working together over the years, Morrison and Egan developed the script so that the meat of this health care journey contains very little fat. It is filled with Morrison’s anxieties and frustration with doctors, health insurance and hospitals. It also deals heavily with the strength and perspective he drew from Seamus’ calmer approach to what was happening. There are no details in the script that are extraneous — even a dreamlike section about how dolphins sleep contains evocative details which echo throughout. The narrative does not meander from chapter to chapter, though its destination is not always clear to the audience. However, the audience should trust this storyteller. The destination is worth the journey.

The inclusion of videos and poetry by Seamus is a masterstroke. It shows us that the child is remarkable and adorable and that this is not merely a dad putting his son on a pedestal — though no one would blame him.

The show is nonlinear yet propulsive, containing moments of genuine suspense because it often feels like a remembrance for Seamus, and because stories like this often have the same sad ending.

Morrison is incredible in playing himself while also embodying the voices and mannerisms of others in every conversation represented. When he plays Seamus at various states of cancer treatment, viewers can easily see the detailed effects the disease has caused. Morrison’s inflection becomes more hesitant and staccato as the child has to relearn speech after brain surgery. In contrast, when Morrison embodies a cold, detached doctor, you get more of a sense of the father’s continued contempt for the person he’s depicting.

It’s a balancing act of vulnerability versus detachment. The richness of the performance makes it difficult to determine if there’s a line between what’s being acted and what old emotions are being resurrected. Morrison is always in control, though, and he has the audience in his hands the entire time.

Set designer Robert Egan’s staging is minimal, consisting of a table and two chairs. It’s similar to the design of Theatrical Outfit’s Remember This: The Life of Jan Karski last year. David Mauer’s use of lighting and slides — in collaboration with Egan and Jacob Morgan Fisch — is particularly effective; it doesn’t necessarily align with the literal text as much as echo from it. The topic of how brains can associate color to sound, discussed onstage, is Mauer’s inspiration. It’s fascinating work.

Georgia Ensemble’s 2023-24 season was truncated after a failed move from their location in Roswell to the Jennie T. Anderson Theatre in Marietta. Their new relocation at Act3 is an attempt to reconnect with their audience and rebuild their resources. 

Morrison’s performance, dedicated to the late Georgia Ensemble Theatre Artistic Director Robert Farley, whom he worked with early in his career, should bring audiences back in droves. Leave Your Fears Here is terrific work.

::

Benjamin Carr is an ArtsATL editor-at-large who has contributed to the publication since 2019 and is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association, the Dramatists Guild, the Atlanta Press Club and the Horror Writers Association. His writing has been featured in podcasts for iHeartMedia, onstage as part of the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival and online in The Guardian. His debut novel, Impacted, was published by The Story Plant.