Duncan Macmillan is one of the most significant contemporary British writers, whose texts examine the problems of parenthood, climate change, and the depletion of our planet’s resources. This is exactly what his interesting play ‘Lungs’ is about, which focuses on a couple of educated and environmentally conscious young people. They recycle, watch documentaries and art films, read books about the right things, ride bikes, and buy from those who don’t exploit. However, they also drive cars, bathe in the tub, and sometimes let the water run without real need.

Can you have a child and be environmentally conscious at the same time, is just one of their dilemmas that will arise when one afternoon He “proposes a child”. She, on the other hand, worries too much, thinks too much, and has a great, really great need to talk about everything, to consider things because everything done must be well thought out.

“‘Lungs’ is a witty, emotional, sometimes brutally honest mental slalom of a generation for whom questioning is imperative, and insecurity has long since become a lifestyle. A slalom full of doubts, fears, and the need for closeness, in which some doors are missed, too much time is lost on some, while some are grabbed just right, at the right time in the right place when Life still happens.

The text “Breathe” – “Lungs” by Duncan McMillan was written in 2011 and represents a contemporary, deeply intimate, simultaneously universal and ecological-global drama. “Breathe” (“Lungs”), through the life cycles of a love affair, follows in a witty and insightful way a relatively young couple M and W (M&W) as they ponder essential questions about meaning and meaninglessness, hope and betrayal, change and death, creating new life and the end of the world and humanity.

Our play “Breathe” (whose title was not chosen by chance, instead of the original) re-examines all the above questions, interpreting them in “one breath” through experimenting with a minimalist acting expression that seeks to surpass them – while adhering to the limitations set by the author himself, as well as the work protocols imposed on us by the pandemic in the process of creating the play.

“The play is written to be performed on an empty stage. No scenery, no furniture, no props, no pointless action. No costume changes. Light and sound should not be used to indicate shifts in time or space.” (Duncan Macmillan).

We created “Breathe” in the uncertainty of the pandemic, in the discomfort and isolation of imposed social distance, in constant mood swings between pain and hope, questioning ourselves with each new breath: Will we come out of this as good people?

Actors Jasmina Vasileva and Dimitrije Doksevski