by Duncan Macmillan
Dramatized and directed by Magnús Thorlacius
LHÍ, Reykjavík (2021)

Ég gæti flogið til New York og til baka á hverjum degi í sjö ár en samt skilið minna kolefnisspor eftir mig en ef ég eignast barn.

Er rétt að fæða barn inn í hrynjandi heim? Er rétt að fæða barn sem mun menga álíka mikið Eiffel turninn er þungur? En hvað ef það er einmitt barnið sem bjargar heiminum? Ef gott fólk hættir að eignast börn deyja genin þeirra út, eða er það ekki það sem þú varst að segja? Ég er bara að halda áfram með það sem þú varst að segja.

Lungun (Lungs) is a play by the British playwright Duncan Macmillan, written in 2011. It’s topic shocked many audience members and play readers at the time, but the question of whether you should have a child due to it’s impact on the environment was a new angle to the topic of climate crisis. The play is even more relevant ten years later, since many feel that little has changed on the issue, and our chance to prevent a climate catastrophe gets more slim by the year. What is the freedom of the individual when we stand at the brink of world’s end? How much should personal choices about our individual lives take the future of mankind into account? Is the responsibility ours, or is it ridiculous to demand that you live for all life on earth, but not yourself?

Magnus’ update to the play ignores the first lines of instructions given by the playwright; for it to be performed on a bare stage with no costume changes, music, light changes, scenery, props etc. Lungun uses the characters and their conflict from selected scenes to create a visual theatre experience that narrows the original play’s themes into a single question: Should you have a child in the state of climate crisis or not?

Duration: 60 minutes.

Watch full performance here.