The play follows a young, educated couple as they navigate the ethical and emotional minefield of deciding whether to have a child in a world facing environmental collapse. The Female Monologue (W): "I'm thinking out loud"
Lungs works because M is us—educated, anxious, loving, and frozen. The monologue isn’t about winning an argument. It’s about a man realizing that knowing better doesn’t mean doing better. If you can hold that contradiction in your voice and body, you’ll break an audience’s heart. lungs duncan macmillan monologue
She doesn't just think about the diapers; she thinks about the diapers' manufacturing process, the trucking logistics, the plastic wrapping, the trees cut down, and the economic disparity between the West and the developing world. She extrapolates a single child into a lineage of carbon consumers stretching a thousand years into the future. The play follows a young, educated couple as
The speech is not just about global warming; it structurally replicates the sensation of drowning. It’s about a man realizing that knowing better
These "monologue" moments are the beating heart of the play, serving as the primary vehicle for Macmillan’s exploration of anxiety, ethics, and the terrifying prospect of parenthood.
: This monologue explores the "eco-anxiety" central to the play. W calculates that a child represents 10,000 tonnes of CO2—the weight of the Eiffel Tower—concluding that she would effectively be "giving birth to the Eiffel Tower" in an overpopulated, "rotten" world.
Here’s how to make it land.