Lungs, A twinke of the eye of eternity!
British playwright Duncan Macmillan’s Lungs is a whirlwind of a script that takes us through the hesitant, full throttle, fractured, and deeply in love relationship of a couple who embark on the perilous journey of deciding whether or not to have a child. He is an artist musician, of sorts, and she is a PhD student who in his words ‘thinks too much’. The play, indeed their very existence, bursts into being with the suggested musing, or presumption that maybe, perhaps, ok, what if we decided to have a child. Ah, wait, but is that a wise or even reasonable thing to do given who we are, where we are, and the state of the planet! Hold on, the planet? Does that mean you’re backing off? No, but just consider for a moment, or as it turns out for an hour and twenty minutes of non-stop dialogue, the implications of such a leap of faith. (Lungs is not ‘too long’, but during the show I attended a restless audience member was obviously late for another venue, and telegraphed that fact in an irritating manner for such an intimate space.)
Lungs is a formidable undertaking and these actors rise to the challenge. The play moves with lightening speed and as directed and choreographed by Paul Griffin, so do performers Megan Carty and Matt Hertendy. Shifts in locale, age, physical state – not pregnant, pregnant, together, not together, and suddenly lo and behold parents – are accomplished between the intake of one breath and the exhale of another. Carty and Hertendy are running a marathon, which doesn’t mean they don’t pause to find moments of joy, sorrow, anger, humour, and much love along the way. You can’t take your eyes off these two as they toss and turn, twist and revolve through the convoluted maze of decision making before giving it their all and deciding to make a break for immortality, the replication of another life. Just watching these two actors is as exhausting as trying to wrestle a three-year old into a snowsuit.
Amid the frenetic pace, and to the delight of the audience, zingers land with precision. The question that will shatter a couple’s universe, should we or shouldn’t we you know…is popped in the isle of an Ikea store. “So where do we go from here?” She says, having calmed down to some degree after a tsunami of emotions prompted by the suggestion of maternity. “Well”, he replies. “We should leave the parking lot.” Macmillian is adept at the fine art of male avoidance. It does seem as if she does most of the over reacting and he does most of the calming down, but this play isn’t trying to achieve a balance, or deliver any particular message, it’s a glimpse into the inner promptings of the beating heart of the desire to procreate.
The set is almost as minimal as the subject is overwhelming. And the play in the hands of this sensitive director and two bold performers begins with the microcosmic stirrings of life and finally launches us into the great big beyond where we whisper to those we love after they have slipped from our grasp to occupy a place on the dew of the flowers we lay in the spot that marks their last habitation.
Beautiful play, excellent directing, wonderful performances; see it with someone you love.
Lungs
Cart Before the Horse Theatre
Written by Duncan Macmillan
Directed by Paul Griffin
Sound design by Martin Dawagne
Cast: Megan Carty and Matt Hertendy
Playing at 2 Daly, Arts Court, Knot Project Space