Lungs by Duncan Macmillan : a retrospective, or, How I stopped worrying and learned to love the sound of my own voice

Abstract

Lungs, a two-person play by Duncan Macmillan, explores the collision between what you want and what the universe needs. It chronicles forty years of a relationship between a man and woman, including two pregnancies, a miscarriage, and a myriad of conversations regarding personal responsibility. Per Macmillan's stage directions, this production was radically minimalistic (no set, no lighting, no soundtrack, etc.), and naturalistic (dialogue that directly reflected how contemporary people speak). Shay Alexi Stewart performed the part of Woman, Joe Colajezzi as Man, and Nathaniel Thomas served as the play's director. The following author's statement describes the impulse to explore minimal theatre in an effort to assuage concerns with the state of American commercial theatre and how the aftermath of said project radically altered the author's larger artistic intentions.