On their first date, Mac Welch and Emily Bernet talked about Lungs, a play about a couple debating whether it would be prudent to bring a child into the world. They never stopped the conversation. Now newlyweds, they’re producing British playwright Duncan Macmillan’s minimalist two-hander as part of the AT&T Performing Arts Center’s Elevator Project series focusing on local artists.
“The funny thing is, and what we are trying to make clear to people on a personal level: This is not a play about us,” Welch says with a laugh. “I can’t tell you the number of times we’ve had to reiterate that we did not write this; this is not about us.”
It helps that they’re not starring in it. Welch is a busy actor who also runs production activities at Teatro Dallas. Bernet is a dancer and choreographer who co-founded Bombshell Dance Project, a group that has appeared multiple times in the Elevator Project. They cast their friends Thomas Magee and Alyssa Carrasco to portray the characters, called “M” and “W” in the script.
Their conversation about Lungs actually began before they started going out. Welch had mentioned it to Bernet when they first met on the set of a show they were both working on, thinking it might be interesting to see what a choreographer could bring to the play. He sent her the script, but they didn’t discuss it again for two years.
News Roundups
Having premiered in Washington, D.C., in 2011, Lungs had been on Welch’s radar since 2018, when he was a theater studies major at Southern Methodist University. It calls for no set, props, sound design, or costume or lighting changes. Fort Worth’s Stage West produced it in 2019.
Welch believed that incorporating designed movement would add a dimension complementing the fractured, conversational dialogue. He had tried to create a student production but was never able to get it off the ground.
Alyssa Carrasco (left) and Thomas Magee (right) star in Mac Welch and Emily Bernet’s production of “Lungs.”
Frederick Ezeala
“When the opportunity for the Elevator Project came up, he wanted to submit something,” Bernet recalls in an interview over Zoom. “I was immediately like, ‘Lungs, right?’ He always wanted to do it. The first time he read it he found it relevant. You hope things have gotten better, but I feel it could have been written today. It still feels important.”
In the play, W is worried about the environmental impact of yet another human on the planet. “Ten thousand tons of CO2 — that’s the weight of the Eiffel Tower,” she says. “I’d be giving birth to the Eiffel Tower.”
What makes Lungs brilliant is that it deals with a range of issues surrounding romantic relationships, not just the idea of whether to have children. The initial bone of contention is that M brings it up first, while they’re in line at Ikea. W is floored she wasn’t the one who broached the subject, then confesses she always thought of motherhood as her primary role in life.
They go on to discuss whether bad people should be allowed to give birth, if having a kid would make them uncool or boring and the possibility that their child could be the one who solves overpopulation.
“The environment is important and talked about, but it’s a setting,” Welch says. “That is the backdrop, the stakes. That’s not the play. It begins with the first conversation they have about it and ends with the last. It’s about the modern dilemma of having a child or not having a child, and if you’re going to have a child, how?”
January brings British farces, ‘Macbeth’ and new voices to D-FW stages
North Texas theater companies are kicking off the new year with Shakespeare indoors, a new musical reading and more.
The alter ego of Dallas musician Danny Anchondo Jr., is the star of AT&T PAC’s new musical
“Selfie Conscious” features a self-described “bad influencer” who needs your data to be famous.
With no stage design or other methods to mark the passage of time, choreography became a means of delineating transitions.
“It’s just a bare stage and actors, so what are we left with? Just two people and their bodies,” Welch explains. “Emily and the work that Bombshell had done in the past, just seeing all the creative things they can figure out to do with the human body, it was a no-brainer.”
So what kind of movement did Bernet come up with, especially since they decided to cast actors, not dancers?
“We want it to look natural, to flow,” she says. “We don’t want the audience to see realism and then we’re doing a dance number. In building the language for it, we started by devising with Thomas and Alyssa, giving them different exercises to see what feels best to them. … It’s a lot of getting entangled in each other’s arms like the way they’re so entwined in each other’s lives.”
“It feels like their bodies start leading them to the next scene,” Welch adds.
Welch and Bernet have known since last April that the Elevator Project had accepted their proposal, so they’ve had an unusually long time to prepare. They did a couple of months of rehearsals with the cast over Zoom — Magee lives in San Diego — then spent weeks in December in their Richardson garage ironing out the choreography by themselves.
Thomas Magee and Alyssa Carrasco star as the couple “M” and “W” in “Lungs.”
Frederick Ezeala
Lungs covers almost a half century, “so it’s definitely not just a play for people in our exact position,” Welch says.
Bernet says they talk about the ending a lot because they still disagree whether it’s happy or sad. Welch corrects her: It comes up every time. “Well, it’s a fundamental conversation,” she retorts.
“It was great first-date conversation,” he says. “We learned so much about the relationship we were about to have.”
Details
Lungs runs Jan. 22-24 at 7:30 p.m. and Jan. 25 at 2 p.m. at Wyly Studio Theatre, 2400 Flora St. $34.50. attpac.org.
‘Dance Moms’ star Abby Lee Miller is coming to North Texas
She’ll share tips and answer questions at studios in Mesquite, Argyle and Waxahachie.
RIFF Dallas is training the next generation of tap dancers
The Jan. 16-19 festival draws students from across the U.S. and culminates in two Eisemann Center shows.