Lungs

In The Guardian in September 2014, playwright Duncan Macmillan is quoted thus: ‘There’s nothing I can do in my life to compensate for the fact that the world would be better without me in it’. Perhaps never before in the history of this planet has the anxiety level regarding our negative environmental impact been so acute.

With this backdrop comes Lungs, a conversation across decades between a couple, played superbly by Kate Atkinson and Bert LaBonte,that begins in Ikea and ends by a grave. Macmillan’s script hits hard with facts and stats, confronting questions of sexual politics, good and evil, conformity, image, activism and apathy head-on along the route.

Delivered with breathtaking intensity, Lungs is a gallery of home truths. It cuts through unapologetically and without mercy. Dare I say it? It was like looking into a mirror at times, and, from the gulps and gasps rippling through tonight’s audience, I know I wasn’t alone.

The set is astonishing. The couple’s lifestyle is turned upside down via a life-sized porthole that rotates vertically, alarmingly upending props, before coming full circle.

Lungs is a gripping 90 minute whirlwind without interval. It will be audio described on Tuesday 1 March (6.30pm), signed in Auslan and audio described on Saturday 5 March (4pm), and captioned on Saturday 19 March (4pm).

Lucy Graham 

Photographer: Jeff Busby