| | | | | | | A NUMBER | | | | | | |
 

by Caryl Churchill; directed by Deanna Reed

Starring Gary Kriesel as Salter; Tony Trout as Bernard 1, Bernard 2, and Michael

MICHAEL: “We’ve got ninety-nine per cent the same genes as any

other person. We’ve got ninety per cent the same as a chimpanzee.

We’ve got thirty percent the same as a lettuce.

It makes me feel I belong. "

What if your child was lost to you for all of time, and then you had the chance to have it back—would you take it? The answer is, yes, of course. What if the only means was to clone that child? The answer is, yes again—very probably. What then, if the child turned out bad and you wanted to start again? Would you agree to cloning a better model? UK playwright Caryl Churchill’s A Number takes us into this ethical labyrinth of what-ifs and very serious buts.

Cloning has been the subject of fierce debate and endless fascination for some time, and successful human cloning is just around the corner. And close to home: Fitchburg houses the world headquarters of the biotech Promega Corporation, leaders in using a technique called polymerase chain reaction to clone genes. The question is, are we ready for the implications of our technological abilities?

Why is this topic so fascinating? Simply put, it goes to the very heart of the human question, Who are we? If your genetic structure is identical to another’s, what is your identity? If you can create an exact replica of your child, does your treatment of that child change the person he will become? And how much do we choose who the next generation will be?

A Number takes an imaginative leap into this situation. A man named Salter, in grief over his wife’s accidental death, is left to raise an incorrigible child whom he puts into care. Afterwards, he has the child cloned with a replacement—and, unknown to him, 19 others are made as well.

In five scenes, Salter is confronted by three of his son(s)—all played by the same actor—and is forced to see the psychological fallout of his actions. As a parent, he had the chance to start again, but the result is not what he expected, and now he is in real danger from his own child.

Over the course of this taut one-hour play, father and son(s) accuse, excuse, and attack. In the end, each must decide whether or not he can accept.

Partially quoted from web review www.adelaidereview.com

Caryl Churchill (born September 3, 1938 in London) was Resident Dramatist, the Royal Court (1974-75) and spent much of the 1970s and 1980s working with the theatre groups ‘Joint Stock’ and ‘Monstrous Regiment’. Her work during this period includes Light Shining in Buckinghamshire (1976), Cloud Nine (1979), Fen (1983) and A Mouthful of Birds (1986), written with David Lan. Top Girls (1982) brings together five historical female characters, at a dinner party in a London restaurant. More recent plays include Mad Forest (1990), written after a visit to Romania, The Skriker (1994), and Far Away (2000) Her new version of August Strindberg’s A Dream Play (2005) premiered in 2005. Caryl Churchill lives in London. Her latest play, Drunk Enough To Say I Love You (2006), takes a critical look at what she sees as the submissiveness of Britain to America in foreign policy.