Lungs
- May 24, 2020
- 2 min read
★★★★★
My brother is the marketing director of the Unicorn Theatre. For the past several seasons, their creative has been handled by a local agency who, in the midst of the Coronavirus crisis, said they were barely hanging on and would have to pass on the upcoming season. My brother asked me if I was interested, and I said I was—this is a dream assignment that’s been on my wishlist for years. Of course, as part of the process, I have to read the plays, and so I have been. I love going to the theatre but I’ve never read a lot of plays (not unusual, I’m sure), so this has been a relatively novel experience for me. In any case, at the conclusion of reading each play, I’ve dashed off initial impressions via text to my brother. For these plays, unlike my more measured, more thoughtful book reviews, I’ll be using those slapdash messages.
Lungs … Holy shit! The lifespan of a couple in 80 pages. No props, no set design, and no real delineation in time or space. Minutes, hours, days, weeks, months—time and place—jump with the next line. Wow. Whirlwind, tornado, tsunami, fucking flood of emotion and adrenaline and just—totally real. Loved it.
As a side note, I could not help but see Dave and George and their rapid-fire conversation after the “Close or hit the bricks!” ultimatum in Glengarry Glen Ross as some sort of inspiration here. Of course, there are probably scores of more appropriate reference points, but that’s the one I’ve got.
To which my brother replied, “I had to literally step away and take a breath. It moved so fast! You’re right. The dialogue is very much like Mamet. Real. Off the cuff. Fast.”
Comments