Lungs (Longen)

The Dutch premiere of Duncan Macmillan’s Lungs, produced in a trajectory for mid-career directors at Het Compagnietheater, the Amsterdam home of the national theatre of the Netherlands. As the planet warms up, the economy cools down, and society hardens, a young couple deliberate the time left to have the child they want. Lungs is a love story in dialogue form, which anatomizes the painfully honest shortcomings of two characters, about a generation for whom uncertainty is the only certainty. Performed in a minimalistic set of a large square floor made of black foam packaging material, the show was innovatively lit with energy-efficient light sources (the first usage of these bulbs in a European theatre performance), making the show use less electricity than half an hour of vacuuming.