Lungs at The Old Vic

Duncan Macmillan’s People, Places and Things, starring Denise Gough, was one of my favourite productions of 2015 and he doesn’t disappoint with his play Lungs, currently playing at The Old Vic. 

With Rob Howell’s minimalistic in-the-round set comprising two solar panels and not much else, the spotlight is well and truly on the acting.  Luckily the young couple here, fretting about whether or not they should start a family, are played by the excellent Claire Foy and Matt Smith.  Not only are they brilliant at their craft, but their chemistry (honed from their previous roles in The Crown) sizzles.  In addition, such is their skill, it only takes a minute to forget their roles as The Queen and Prince Philip.

One of Macmillan’s strengths is the natural way his characters speak.  Foy and Smith, the unnamed couple here, spar and vocally jab at each other, moving at speed from the insignificant to the profound.  The baby question, originally posed by Smith, arises in the queue at Ikea and quickly develops into a conversation/argument, that continues when they get home and over the following weeks.  Not that we’re shown their home or anything appertaining to it, as there is nothing naturalistic about this play apart from the emotion. The scenes, such as they are, run into one another, with no change in the lighting, or pauses.  We suddenly realise they must be in the nightclub they talked about (their dance moves providing a visual clue), trying to make their voices heard above the noise and then, without warning it’s obvious they’re back home and probably in bed.

The ease these two actors have in each other’s company is so tangible that there’s no doubt we’re watching a couple deeply in love with each other.  Foy, cutely dressed in grey dungarees, is all relaxed limbs and mind in fast forward with her thoughts darting from one to another in a heartbeat.  Her speech is peppered with swear words, she contradicts herself regularly and every now and again our irritation creeps in.  But not for long, for Foy also imbues her compelling character with a vulnerability and when that appears, we start loving her again.

The equally casually dressed Smith in trainers, t-shirt and jeans, is more measured and is obviously baffled and at times irritated by Foy’s sudden pre-menstrual mood swings.  Is this unsuccessful musician absolutely sure he actually wants to be tied down with a baby?

Under Matthew Warchus’s pitch perfect direction, Lungs is as funny as it is thought provoking and, ultimately, melancholy.  It was written in 2011 and if it was pertinent then, it’s even more so now, thanks, in part, to the high-profile Extinction Rebellion.  However, Duncan Macmillan didn’t originally intend for it to be about climate change.  It was more a personal play that sprang from a specific time in his life and the anxieties he felt then.  These anxieties included whether liberal educated people in the West, like himself, can be truly good people or whether their privilege is dependent on the suffering of others.  As we see here, these concerns are those that resonate with this couple and, I suspect with many others too.