Brooke Bloom and Ryan King in Barrington Stage Company's production of Duncan Macmillan's Lungs, directed by Aaron Posner, the debut production at BSC's newly acquired theater space, the St. Germain Stage.
We are in the midst of an extended period in theater, film, and television during which it seems as if the inner psychology of every female character (at least in dramas and comedies about relationships) can be boiled down to the woman’s wanting – needing – to have a child. This phenomenon, a default insight into women of childbearing years, found its nadir in the popular movie Knocked Up, in which a young, unmarried career woman, following a hook-up with an entirely inappropriate man/child that results in her unplanned pregnancy, barely gives a thought to not having their baby. In contrast to this, a woman's hysterical reaction to the mere suggestion of procreation in Duncan Macmillan’s funny, uncomfortably intimate, and finally moving two-character play, Lungs, is like a breath of fresh air – albeit one from the therapist’s office. The mouthpiece (or, more accurately, lung machine) of this hyperactively nervous overthinking is the character "W," a PhD student played with microsurgical precision by Brooke Bloom, who makes Annie Hall look a like zen master. The premise of the play, and much of the discussion between W and her dumbstruck, if far from dull, husband, "M," played with mimetically touching and tender confusion by the handsome Ryan King, is not only “Should intelligent, environmentally conscious people even be thinking of having kids given the state of the world?” It is also the fruitlessness of excessive anxiety, particularly among people spending lots of time pursuing masters degrees in attractively appointed settings and homes. Lucian Stecconi’s minimalist set, made up simply but chicly of mauve-stained pickled hardwood, suggests an Ikea-dominated world that is not quite prepared for yet another human being capable of producing 10,000 tons of carbon in its lifetime. Macmillan is a hilarious and observant dialogist; much of Lungs is a cinematic, whiplash-witted update of the familiar battle of the sexes in the Tracy/Hepburn – Keaton/ Allen vein. It’s something of a nifty turnabout that the play ends up being not a portrayal of the woman’s predicament, but more of a subtle depiction of the calmer, less verbal, male character’s perspective. Toward the conclusion of the play, the audience starts to wonder, “Why doesn’t he just tell her to just shut up and calm down?”-- something he finally does, quietly but satisfyingly. That end, by the way (spoiler alert), turns into a touching fast-forward through the couple’s entire life until their final days, and bears an uncanny resemblance to the ending of the silent Buster Keaton masterpiece College, a wordless but equally droll counterpart to this mouthy, telling work about relationships in the modern world. —Scott BaldingerLungs by Duncan Macmillan At Barrington Stage Company’s St. Germain StageNow through June 10 Directed by Aaron Posner Starring Brooke Bloom and Ryan King
