15 July 2021. I had it all planned out to write and post this on the night that I watched Lungs, but – as always – the obtrusive wall known as procrastination got in the way and I never got around to doing it. But with the rollercoaster that was the past few weeks involving the return of Singapore to P2HA and the closure of theatres across the nation once more, I became yet again motivated to record my experience of this show in the miracle we once knew as live theatre, for myself – and perhaps, others – to reflect and reminisce upon. First of all, disclaimer: I am not a critic. I am only a humble audience member who happens to have opinions about the shows I watch – whether or not they are qualified and/or agreeable to is for every individual who reads this to decide. To each his own. Anyway, I’ve always thought that the title of ‘critic’ is stuffy and arrogant – no one is ever qualified enough to evaluate all art objectively, since the very nature of art is subjective. Especially theatre, where everything and anything can be staged if one has enough guts and belief (and budget) to. So. Yeah. Not a critic. But read on if you’re interested in what I have to say. I guess I’ll start by saying I walked out of this show a writhing mass of emotions, stumbling slightly upon the ascent from my seat and highly unnerved by what I had just witnessed. Few things have unseated me like Lungs has, perhaps surpassed only by Pangdemonium’s production of This is What Happens to Pretty Girls. Lungs, to me, was a very real, very stark (and perhaps a little bleak) portrayal of human connection and selfishness, highlighting exactly how self-serving we all are. The central debate of the play was whether or not to bring a child into the world – a world wrecked by a climate crisis, unrest and uncertainty. The two characters in the play constantly dance around this question, but their arguments are less focused on questions most of us would consider – of whether we have enough funds, emotional maturity and time to take care of a child – but rather of bigger issues that, ironically, tend to seem small in the face of the personal sacrifices we make on our parts – those of an extra human’s carbon footprint and political instability in a rapidly imploding world. As Woman bluntly expresses: ‘Ten thousand tonnes of CO2. That’s the weight of the Eiffel Tower. I’d be giving birth to the Eiffel Tower.’ While walking back home after watching the play, I began to contemplate the cost of my very existence. What damage has been unleashed on the world, just because I was brought into it? What is the impact of me at this very moment – the clothes I’m wearing, the bus I just got off, the air I’m exhaling – on the Earth? Have I done enough good in my life to make up for all the bad I’ve incurred? I don’t know. These are questions I don’t have the answers to, and questions I’d try not to think of too much or spiral into, but important questions we should be aware of nonetheless and consider from time to time. To the issue of introducing so much carbon dioxide into the world, Man and Woman naively present an answer – planting trees! Planting a whole forest of trees, to offset the carbon output of the one human being they are about to bring into the world! Yet it is clear that in spite of the constant assertion that they are good, educated people who think of the world’s needs before their own, their innate nature to procreate overcomes their desire to think for others. But what I loved most about this show was its presentation two very authentically flawed human beings. Man and Woman are victims of the same pitfalls as the rest of us humans, be it through a lack of compassion and understanding, infidelity or suicidal thoughts, and these make their struggles infinitely real, and infinitely captivating. With the subject matter of this play, I was forced to reflect on the selfish choices we make for our own happiness and satisfaction. In a world that is straining under the pressure of so many lives, even having a child is a selfish desire to experience the joy and love of family. When the most selfless course of action for the good of the world would be to not have children, or – god forbid – eradicate ourselves, how do we go about justifying our behaviour and maintaining the façade of being a good person? Regarding the performance itself, I absolutely loved the tinges of Singaporean accent throughout the 1.5h of duologue. When staging plays from the West, Singaporean theatremakers often fall into the trap of a clipped and precise British or American-accented delivery, which – to me – tends to make local productions more whitewashed and bourgeois than I’d like them to sound. While effective in terms of conveying the content, such choices often distance me from the material, making them seem less personally relevant in a Singaporean context. However, with just a dash of the Singlish accent, the play became a refreshingly authentic depiction of a dilemma that all of us face, making its subject matter all the more pertinent. The simplicity of the set, dialogue and costumes also resonated quite strongly with me, articulating the themes of the play with tremendous clarity. Though these three elements were stripped down, it reminded me that a show can be immensely powerful even without having to hide behind the theatricality of a complex dance routine, a big ensemble or a sky-high finale note. For Lungs, everything was contained within the lives of Man and Woman (which perhaps even functioned as a microcosm of sorts) and the interpretative minds of the audience. The raw staging allowed me to focus fully on their words and physicality, while the ordinariness of their clothes made them seem no different from any of us average folk, introducing the critical element of relatability that allowed the material to connect with each person. And in this way, I could see myself in Woman – asking her questions, understanding her arguments, celebrating her victories. That being said, I did feel that the material became quite dry about twenty to thirty minutes into the performance, due to little variation in intonation and a repetitive narrative arc. During many of the early arguments between Man and Woman, the text felt like a tennis match of ‘Let’s have a kid!’ – ‘But the Earth!’ – ‘But we should have a kid!’ – ‘But the Earth!’. Coupled with a regular pattern of shouting, the respective arguments eventually lost some of the steam that it had gathered during the outset and showcased little emotional depth beyond anger/irritation. Yet despite the occasionally mundane execution, the presence of some exceedingly witty lines gave the performance a welcome lift, rousing me from my stupor with a barely stifled laugh. What I do wish I could have seen more of, though, were cadences. The text was written to seem like a wholly unrehearsed conversation, with all the rambling and hesitancy that one would ordinarily hear in a day-to-day exchange. While this kept the pace of the show going for those one and a half hours, silences were few and far between, which – to me – diminished the drama of many moments in the play. Still images and intimate, contained dialogue always call out to me in ways that heightened volume and razor-sharp exchanges cannot, introducing a certain quiet, unbreakable tension that extends throughout the stage and to the audience, creating one shining moment of emotion. While on the topic of visual images, I did notice that there was a lack of physical contact between the two actors. Whether this was due to blocking the performance around existing safe distancing regulations or directorial intention I wasn’t too sure, but the play on distances was particularly useful in conveying the couple’s changing relationship throughout the play. Perhaps my favourite moment was right after the first climax, post-miscarriage, when the woman emerges from a haze of (what I assume to be) depression to reveal the profound grief of her experience. At this moment, she stands only a few paces away from Man, and yet the distance between them is insurmountable. They are worlds, planets, universes apart, separated by an inability to understand and a lack of empathy. Their gender difference gleams stark and clear in the glare of the lights that were once warm, but now harsh, as Woman seems to crumple upon herself in a silence punctuated by her meek, broken plea: ‘I needed you to be braver than me and put your own feelings second and to understand. To try to imagine what it’s like to miscarry.’ And in that moment, with bated breath, furrowed brow and a hand clamped over my mouth (and mask), I felt something hit home. Call it inbred maternal instinct, innate womanly intuition, or inherent sensitivity to another member of the female population, but the sheer despair and defeat in her voice pierced through me, coaxing an unbidden tear from my eye. My heart shattered for and with her – a lonely figure cut-off from everyone else, struggling to stay afloat amidst a raging sea of guilt and self-blame, and yet having to move forward nonetheless. But beyond all this, my appreciation of this particular work stems from an unbridled love for stories about human relationships and connection. I have always had a particular interest in the immeasurable number of ways humans can interact with each other, relying on, betraying, loving, helping, patronising… the list goes on. The ability of theatre to examine and subsequently express the many facets of the human condition has drawn me back to it, time after time, and is what – in my humble opinion – sets it apart. With Lungs’ gradual unveiling of the strained roots beneath a deceptively steady relationship, as well as the turbulent storm that follows which eventually brings Man and Woman back together, we are presented with a very authentic depiction of what it means to be human in the 21st century. While bringing to our attention the moral dilemmas associated with the creation yet another life, the content of the play also provokes us to question the nature of our own relationships and priorities, ultimately making us consider what it truly means to be a good person and human being. . . . Are we good people?
Lungs by Singapore Repertory Theatre ran from 21 June to 24 July at the KC Arts Centre.
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