Lung
In this thoroughly engaging story of a lung transplant, wry comedy mixes with fear and frustration. Death hovers, but there’s still space for temper tantrums, marital discord, surprising and funny reactions, interfering if well-meaning parents, bickering, and of course cold or insouciant doctors and specialists.
Anna (Nikki Coghill) has an annoying cough but denies there’s anything really wrong. As you do. Husband Dave (Geoff Wallis), a very recognisable blokey-bloke, is concerned, but Anna is stubborn. Meanwhile, her lungs (left lung Alison Richards – hilarious - right lung Tony Rive – mordantly hilarious) have been through a lot together, but now they know they’re on the skids… Finally, denial exhausted, symptoms inescapable, Anna submits to tests – and faces the fact that there are only two options: a slow and agonising death, or a complete lung transplant. But you don’t grab new lungs off the shelf…
Lung started out as a 30-minute radio play. In this multi-facetted, expanded, enriched, and performed live on-stage version, it’s still a radio play but that’s its charm. Kate Herbert could have gone the traditional adaptation route and turned her play into a play-play, but instead she and director Nancy Black have kept the radio form and its unique resources – quick punchy scenes, a mosaic of voices, Elissa Goodrich’s soundscape to tell us where we are (and we can go anywhere, no breaks for scene changes) – and the wonder of radio, the audience’s imagination. Our imaginations are assisted, and our attention directed by Liam Bradford’s lighting. The sound design is particularly effective - especially when loud arguments and outbursts of despair take place in what are clearly public spaces, and we see Geoff Wallis as Dave signalling ‘please keep your voice down!’
The cast line up on stage behind microphones and stands for their scripts. We listen intently and we watch their faces. They interact, but more with us than each other, and they don’t move around much, but there’s really no need. Dave comes and goes (much use is made of the actual, on-stage door – expressively slammed), as does Anna’s mum Jan (Carmelina Di Guglielmo), always ready with fresh veggies and inappropriate remarks. Alison Richards and Tony Rive double as those doctors and Tony Rive does a spooky turn as Death – just in case we’d forgotten Death is always there.
There is not a false note to the whole enterprise. Kate Herbert’s dialogue is fresh, natural but never predictable and director Nancy Black achieves a fine, pacy rhythm to the performances. Nikki Coghill’s charm ensure we want things to turn out all right for Anna – even when Anna is impossible, and Dave nears the end of his tether. Static, perhaps, but we hang on every word and it’s all great fun.
Michael Brindley
Photographer: Darren Gill
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