Duncan Macmillan’s 90-minute conversation, Lungs, is both up-to-the-minute and timeless. While it is certainly a new play, it has already had more productions than most scripts that The Theatre at Arts Garage’s Lou Tyrrell is used to dealing with. But Macmillan’s way with dialogue is so crisp, glib and theatrical, it is easy to see why the Delray Beach artistic director would be eager to give the work its area premiere.
Nor does it hurt that the playwright specifies Lungs be produced without sets, props, sound cues or costume changes. This bare-bones, “plank and a passion” approach puts the spotlight on the words, which has been Tyrrell’s signature for the past 25 years, either by necessity or by design. And when those words are delivered by two such nimble performers as Betsy Graver and Cliff Burgess, no production embellishments seem needed.
The two actors play characters designated in the program as M. and W., a couple of highly verbal, overeducated 30-somethings, whose lives will be forever changed by a comment he makes in an Ikea store checkout line. Seemingly out of the blue, M. suggests that they should discuss the matter of having a baby, an idea that unnerves W., causing her to freak out and spout a long, funny, defensive monologue about how selfish and unwise such a step would be in this precarious, endangered world. And so they bat the subject back and forth, obsessing over the personal and global consequences of procreating, an act undertaken by others before them for generations with unchallenged inevitability.
With a manner that is one part David Mamet and one part Harold Pinter, W. weighs her options in stream-of-consciousness fragmentary bursts, editing and correcting her word choices as she speaks. M. is less verbal, cooler of temperament, less threatened by the decision they face, perhaps because it is not his body that will bear the child for nine months. If Graver has the more showy verbal assignment, Burgess manages to match her with expressive silent reactions.
Without warning, the play skips ahead days, months, even years, just as it changes locales in the blink of a transitional beat. Tyrrell not only stages Lungs with clarity of time and space, but he paces the duo’s interaction for optimum dramatic impact. Ultimately, the journey takes M. and W. through their entire lives — not unlike a post-modern version of The Fourposter — through crises both medical and marital. Do not be surprised if you find yourself rooting for them to find lasting happiness together, even as you sense that the characters may not be ideal for each other.
Graver and Burgess, however, are well-matched, with a palpable chemistry that helps make the evening so satisfying. Of course, they have a smart, involving script to perform, resulting in a memorable, if unadorned production that should give you plenty to mull over for days to come.
LUNGS, The Theatre at Arts Garage, 180 N.E. First St., Delray Beach. Through Sunday, April 14. Tickets: $30-$40. Call: (561) 450-6357.
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They say that personality and political bent skips a generation, perhaps because we are prone to rebel against our parents. And frail, 90-ish Marxist widow Vera and her self-proclaimed hippie grandson Leo do have much in common, including the gene for stubbornness. Their clashes and eventual détente are the focus of Amy Herzog’s character-rich family drama, 4000 Miles, now on view at Coral Gables’s GableStage.
Leo (Michael Focas) arrives at Vera’s spacious, rent-controlled Lower Manhattan apartment at 3 o’clock in the morning, exhausted from a cross-country bicycle trek from his home in Seattle. She (Harriet Oser) takes him in, but is distrustful of him, and her suspicions are not unfounded as it turns out.
The bicycle trip has tragic overtones, we will learn, and Leo’s estrangement from his parents also has darkly dramatic roots. Herzog eventually fills us in on these details, but by that time, we have developed an affection for the young man, despite his flaws.
Vera also appeared in Herzog’s earlier breakthrough play, After the Revolution, another intersection of family and politics. A secondary character then, she is at the center of the more recent work, and the two plays form an affecting family album, however fictionalized. This synergy is particularly evident because Oser also assumed the role when the Caldwell Theatre presented the earlier drama in what would be its final season two years ago.
At GableStage, she builds a stunning portrait of Vera, a still feisty woman, even if her hearing is shot, she has begun losing words and the constant need to attend the funerals of her friends has taken its toll on her. Leo recognizes the ravages of age on his grandmother and tries to be patient with her, but rarely succeeds. Although it is a theatrical cliché, Herzog has written a warm, comic scene of the two of them bonding over a disjointed, stoned conversation.
Leo has come to New York largely to try to reconcile with former girlfriend Bec (Kate O’Phalen), a moody, brooding college student who is clearly over him. The fourth character is an affluent Asian party girl named Amanda (Wei-Yi Lin), who Leo picks up and brings back to Vera’s apartment hoping to bed her. The scene injects a needed dose of humor into the 90-minute, intermission less evening, and also draws a parallel with his adopted sister.
Director Joe Adler guides his cast through the play’s many tonal shifts, and gets some very authentic work from his two leading performers. As usual, Lyle Baskin lends the production an added layer of credibility with his New York apartment design, and Ellis Tillman’s costumes fill in significant character details.
Politics takes a back seat in 4000 Miles, but it is still a worthy journey for its very human examination of intergenerational coexistence.
4000 MILES, GableStage at Biltmore Hotel, 1200 Anastasia Ave., Coral Gables. Through Sunday, April 14. Tickets $37.50-$50. Call: (305) 445-1119.