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Regional Reviews: St. Louis Lungs Also see Richard's reviews of Night of the Iguana and Nevermore: The Imaginary Life and Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe
The British man and woman on stage ("M" and "W") are comically overwhelmed by the prospect of parenthood in the face of global warming, which, I know, doesn't sound all that funny. You'll have to see for yourself. Lungs gets lots of laughs in a fast-paced story, with some hard knocks too. It is, admittedly, a nervous kind of laughter that regularly screeches out of us, thanks to a couple on stage who are wry and glum, and at times explicitly romantic under the direction of Ellie Schwetye. Her shows, here and in recent years, have had a consistent internal tension at every level. And a reliably thoughtful, reflective quality as well. There's no intermission in this 105-minute play, which resembles Waiting for Godot in its keening quality, and in the spare set by Erik Kuhn. Except there's no dying tree on stage, which seems like a missed opportunity to me. Uneasy daddy and ambivalent estrogen are maddened in a dry comic fashion, scanning the bleak horizon for a baby and equally on the lookout for a hideous new climate. Accruing to the playwright's benefit, the two actors in this case rip through overlapping dialog in torrents of relationship humor in a script that features long, thrilling stretches of near-parody new-age cross-talk. Thanks to their great precision and acting, Joel Moses and Nicole Angeli transform the rough strategies of playwright Macmillan into an all-consuming riddle of love in the modern age. A tug-of-war between the great and small matters of the day becomes both haunting and genuinely sentimental. "W" and "M" maintain the tone of a romcom structure, but Ms. Angeli and Mr. Moses generate so much naturalism that it all seems newly reckoned. Creative lighting by Tony Anselmo helps a lot, especially in the dramatic scenes. Even the shadows that frame the couple's faces are attractive. The sound design by the director is excellent as always. It's a good script, made vastly better in this production. Would it be better if it stayed "existential" all the way till the end, like a Beckett play? If the big issues were never resolved? Those two conundrums, babies and boiling oceans, won't seem to wait. In fact they come rapidly to a head in the final five minutes or so, as events crash together like a bug and a windshield–though it's a lot more gently poetic than that, in a wistful coda. A coincidental meta-story, "how can two people get along if they're both talking at the same time," becomes the glory of the work. Especially in a tense election year over the fate of our country. Lungs, an Albion Theatre production, runs through November 3, 2024, at the Kranzberg Arts Center, 501 N. Grand Avenue, St. Louis MO. For tickets and information, please visit www.albiontheatrestl.org. Cast: Production Staff: |
