Go see it. But bring tissues. And maybe a Xanax. Have you seen or read Lungs ? What did you think of the ending? Let me know in the comments below.
There is a scene in the second half involving a concert and a phone call that is, without hyperbole, one of the most heartbreaking sequences ever written for the stage. It reminds us that while we worry about the future of the planet, we often forget to survive the present moment.
At first glance, the setup sounds almost deceptively simple. A man and a woman—simply named W and M—stand in a bare space (no set, no props, just two microphones). They are in an IKEA. They are having a tense, whisper-argument about whether to have a child. She wants one. He is terrified. But within ten minutes, you realize this isn't a play about baby names or nursery colors. It is a terrifying, beautiful, and devastatingly honest calculus of love, guilt, and the planet we are leaving behind. lungs by duncan macmillan
Duncan Macmillan has written a play for our age of anxiety. It is small in scale (two people, no props) but infinite in scope (the entire future of the human race).
Macmillan uses a theatrical trick that is pure genius: . The play leaps forward in time—a pregnancy, a miscarriage, a birth, a breakup, a reunion, a tragedy—all in the span of a few sentences. You blink, and ten years have passed. You blink again, and they are old. Go see it
There are plays that entertain you, plays that distract you, and then there are plays that grab you by the sternum and refuse to let go. Duncan Macmillan’s Lungs falls squarely into the last category.
Lungs won’t leave you with a solution. It won’t tell you whether to have the baby or save the planet. Instead, it leaves you with the feeling of holding your breath underwater—that pressure in your chest, the ringing in your ears, the desperate need to break the surface. Have you seen or read Lungs
