And a really good breath warm-up. Lungs (Oberon Modern Plays, 2011) – includes the full text and Macmillan’s note on overlapping dialogue.

“I want to be a father. I don’t want to be a murderer. And I don’t know how to be both. So I’m paralysed.”

“I read that every time we breathe it’s mostly nitrogen, actually. Only 20% oxygen. And every time we breathe out it’s full of what trees breathe in. So we’re already breathing each other.”

By [Feature Writer Name]

At first glance, Duncan Macmillan’s lungs (2011) is the ultimate contemporary two-hander: a raw, 90-minute, no-interval dialogue between a man and a woman, simply named W and M, as they navigate love, panic, parenthood, and planetary collapse. But actors and directors have discovered a secret buried in its overlapping, breathless rhythms: lungs contains two of the most demanding, interwoven monologues in modern theatre. Macmillan’s signature technique is simultaneous speech —characters interrupt, finish each other’s thoughts, and speak over one another as real people do. In performance, this creates a seamless flow. But in rehearsal, each actor must learn their entire role as a continuous, unbroken monologue , punctuated only by the phantom cues of the other’s lines.