Lungs- Old Vic: In Camera
Lungs-
Review- Old Vic: In Camera
If
there's one industry that has suffered greatly from the lockdown restrictions,
it's theatre. Whilst we've all been able to enjoy the free productions on the
National Theatre YouTube, in addition to several showings on BBC iPlayer, we've
taken for granted the massive toll that the pandemic is taking on the
livelihoods of thousands of actors, directors, technicians and other creatives.
One way
that the Old Vic Theatre in London is adapting to the situation is through 'Old
Vic: In Camera', a series of live productions which are streamed via Zoom.[1] Theatre-goers purchase a
ticket online and are emailed a Zoom link, and actors perform live to an empty
auditorium, maintaining strict social distancing. This obviously cannot
feasibly work for every piece of drama, and requires clever filming to give the
impression that actors are interacting with each other.
Luckily,
Duncan MacMillan's Lungs is a play that centres around emotional
distance, so the alienating performance scenario works perfectly. The cast
consists of Matt Smith and Claire Foy, who have previously acted as royal
co-stars in The Crown, and starred in a previous run of Lungs at
the Old Vic from last October. The pair approached the Old Vic [2]with their plans to stage
the text, planning to take it to New York Broadway before the coronavirus
disruptions. Now, they've had to adapt to split-screen filming, so that every
tiny facial expression is captured. For a play that follows a twenty-something
couple who attempt to navigate their anxieties around child-rearing, their
relationship and the state of society in general, this intense filming worked
very well.
The play
opens with a seemingly simple conversation between the couple about having a
baby, however it becomes clear from the offset that the pair aren't listening
to each other. Foy, (whose character is listed in the script as 'F', whilst
Smith's character is 'M'), prefers long, angsty speeches about her own identity
issues, while Smith remains aloof, almost smirking at his girlfriend's musings,
possibly in boredom. These characters, while appearing quite stilted at the
beginning, really develop throughout the performance, and relax into a
bickering-yet-nurturing couple.
The
nature of the dialogue, which comes in short bursts and relies on the actors
constantly interrupting each other, doesn't always capture the spontaneity of
human speech, but comes pretty close. Thoughts are spoken as soon as they
appear, which allows for some refreshingly honest conversations about human
relationships, and our responsibility to the environment. The couple are
constantly agonising about whether they are 'good people': whether they recycle
enough; donate to charity enough; and whether they ultimately 'deserve' to
bring a child into a world that is suffering from a global climate catastrophe.
Constantly
revising her words, Foy shows a self-conscious attitude towards the world
around her, which is felt strongly within our "cancel culture", where
many feel the constant pressure to say and do the right thing. In contrast, her
partner is far more impulsive, which Smith captures through moments of passion,
but with a tendency to resort to a more 'cockney' accent when exhilarated.
Whilst this is perhaps a deliberate decision, it comes across as more clumsy
than effective, and unfortunately takes away slightly from some otherwise
compelling scenes.
Despite
slight inconsistencies as individual characters, the connection between the two
actors is difficult to fault, with their ability to interact through their body
language as much as their speech. At times, they create a perfect unit that
makes the rest of the play's anxieties seem to dissipate, which is summed up
within Foy's line, 'the world's not there- it's just us- and we're the whole
universe.' Perhaps one message to take away is that love, however fleeting and
complicated, is a sure way of dealing with the difficulty of being alive during
times like these.
The
fatalistic discussion of the environment is a key theme of the play, and whilst
we approach dystopia towards the end, it’s a shocking reminder of the kind of
world we might be looking at in just a couple of decades’ time. This sense of
impending doom resonates even more strongly within the context of a global pandemic.
The anxiety surrounding child-rearing can be felt as an issue of global health,
and the frightening prospect of introducing a new person into a world where
they cannot interact with others and must be constantly shielded. Yet, the
environmental consciousness of the play does not take away from its domestic
realism – the pair are first and foremost a normal couple, who worry about
things that we all worry about. And beyond this, they worry about
worrying, as Smith's character states – 'people are getting less caring, less
informed and more savage.' Lungs sends the message that we should be
worried about our world, if we are to have any hope of making a difference.
The
trouble of depicting intimate scenes from a distance is overcome through clever
camera shots, with the couple appearing in an embrace at times, and separated
beyond comfort at others. In those latter scenes, the panned-out angle expertly
portrays a sense of alienation, as the M and F struggle to understand how the
other one is feeling. It's the genius of film meeting the art of theatre to
create a production that feels more intrusive than when viewing a performance
in a traditionally "live" sense. Still, the production also manages
to capture external action, such as dancing in a club, and meeting outside for
a picnic. Like when listening to an audiobook, the expressive dialogue of the
characters allows you to visualise each setting that they participate in, even
as the stage remains bare.
Aside
from a few blurry shots, (perhaps due to connection difficulties or a poor Zoom
resolution), the production was filmed seamlessly, and the audience were left
baffled not only with the quality of the acting, but of the livestream itself.
It is hard to separate the genius of the production from the way it was filmed,
and delivered to audiences in such an exclusive way. Could this be the future
of theatre-going? If yes, I would argue that it provides a perfectly suitable
alternative to traditional performance, and perhaps even enhances the
experience of watching drama.
Articles
advising the production have stressed the convenience of watching it, with the
Metro pointing out that 'you technically don't even need to get dressed to
watch it.'[3] Whilst this remains true,
I believe that this kind of theatre deserves a certain amount of reverence, and
is far more than just an easy way to fill an hour or two of lockdown boredom.
It's a seriously clever play, performed by two actors who have clearly worked
hard to understand the inner workings of the characters, and it revolutionises
the concept of live performance.
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