After last year’s fruitful creative partnership for Limbo, Real Circumstance Theatre has reunited with York Theatre Royal for Lough/Rain, two interlinking plays by Declan Feenan and Clara Brennan that were rehearsed in the Walmgate studios before a successful, award nominated, if rain interrupted, run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

The two-in-one play is performed by Kate Donmall and Jot Davies, who have returned to York buoyed by their nominations for best actress and best actor in The Stage Awards for Acting Excellence at Edinburgh.

After resuming work in the rehearsal studio with director Dan Sherer, whose credits include being a staff director for Mike Leigh at the National Theatre, they are now playing Micahel and Caoimhe once more, in a lyrical exploration of loss and love, set in the wake of a terrible accident. Michael and Caoimhe must rebuild their lives as best they can, but all Michael can remember is the boat out on the lough that never should have been there. The barometer points to rain as the young couple realise they might not grow old together.

Charles Hutchinson discusses the company’s working methods with director Dan Sherer.

Dan, please introduce the way that Real Circumstance productions take shape.

“Real Circumstance was set up in 2006 with two aims: to produce innovative theatre that prioritises the acting process; and to support emergent actors and writers who want to investigate and develop new ways of working. As well as producing new writing, Real Circumstance devises new work through extensive and intensive long-term improvisation. In our plays we explore intimate human narratives that exist in detailed, three-dimensional worlds.

“All our work is underpinned by a process of rehearsal in which actors are encouraged to create fully realised imaginary selves, who are able to respond truthfully to any given circumstance.”

Explain how that works in practice?

“What we try to do is have no real separation between the work we do on stage and what we do in the rehearsal room, so what we do is build the life of each character and what we show the audience is part of that.

“We minimise the effect of ‘there’s an audience there’, so it’s about trying to be honest in performance, and that’s why you make judgements on what you imagine may have happened before.

“If I’m doing my work properly, hopefully the character is built in such a way that the actor will never behave incorrectly in that character…but stuff happens, which build someone’s character, and how people deal with that is what’s interesting.”

Is the script sacrosanct?

“People sometimes get confused and think I don’t pay attention to the script, but the script is the rule. That is it. But what you do is create a set-up where what the actors do is second nature and obvious to them, and because it all comes through different degrees of improvisation, there’ll come a point where I’ll say, ‘Right, go away and learn the lines now’.

“Let’s say you imagine you’ve lost a child; we build the life where you didn’t know that would happen, and so you can only respond in the one way you would. It’s about ensuring the actors are prepared for any situation facing their character in an honest way.

“By the time they have the script, they will have experienced everything that they will face in the play, but it’s not a case of me knowing what will happen in the play and gradually letting Kate and Jot know. That sounds puppet master-ish, and it’s not how we work. The actors lead it.”

Is this a more risky way of preparing a performance?

“Initially yes it is, but ultimately no. On stage nothing can go wrong. If a chair breaks in a show, they can react to that [in character] and get through it.

“But initially the working process is brave because you don’t know where it will lead you. As I said to Jot, I’m going to look after you really well until you get to the stage; then you’re going to look after me really, really well in your performance.

“Actors only feel unsafe if they’re scared, and they only feel scared if they don’t feel they know what’s going on and that things are out of control. A lot of it is about creating a structure and our two actors are completely brave and safe at the same time.”

• Lough/Rain, The Studio, York Theatre Royal, until October 4 at 9.30pm. Back And Forth present Bridget Foreman’s Beyond Measure at 7.45pm each night. Tickets can be bought separately for each show or at a discount price for both; box office 01904 623558