A Number

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Summary: Near-future science becomes a domestic nightmare
Review: On a routine visit to hospital, Bernard receives some shocking news: he's been cloned. When he confronts his father, he finds out it's worse: he is just one in an unknown number of genetically identical sons. But is Bernard the original or a copy? Does it matter? And what's going to happen when two other versions come knocking at the door? "A Number" takes the ethical labyrinth of genetic engineering, and the timeless debate over nature versus nurture, and reconstitutes them as a bracing family drama. As Bernard and his "brothers" wrestle with a range of very human responses to the news - shock, anger, horror and delight - their anxious father ducks and weaves, grudgingly revealing their histories and the anguished choices he's made. The play's themes might be borrowed from science fiction and philosophy, but its scale is confrontingly domestic. There are no speeches, no grand pronouncements, no finely honed philosophical dialogues here. It consists almost entirely of the halting, taciturn exchanges that usually pass for conversation between men, especially fathers and sons. This makes the issues real for us. It grounds them in the eternal questions and doubts that hover over every child and every parent who wishes they could cancel their mistakes. "A Number" looks fearlessly at what is often left over when the excitement of new science fades: damaged people. In this case, they must confront not only what's been done to them, but the more terrifying issue of just what they actually are. By extension, it's something we're invited to ponder about ourselves. As one "son" reminds us: "We've got ninety-nine percent the same genes as any other person. We've got ninety percent the same genes as a chimpanzee. We've got thirty percent the same as a lettuce." So what makes me different? What is it that makes me, me? What accounts for that look in the eyes, the set of the shoulders, the scowl or the smile that allows a father to distinguish between his genetically identical sons? We can create life in a petri dish, but do we actually know what it is? It's a chilling question, and one that may well be unanswerable. But as Caryl Churchill shows in this spare, harrowing and above all humane play, those kind of questions are precisely the ones worth asking.