A Number

by Caryl Churchill

seen at the Bridge Theatre on 26 February 2019

Polly Findlay directs Roger Allam as Salter (the father) and Colin Morgan as Michael, B1 and B2 (the sons) in a new production designed by Lizzie Clachan of Caryl Churchill's 2002 play concerning a man who, it transpires, has arranged for his son to be cloned, but is unaware of how many 'copies' were made.

In an ordinary slightly rumpled living room, an insecure son confronts his father, having just discovered that he not unique (though he hasn't actually met any of his 'twins'). Salter's immediate reaction is to stall and to muse about suing whoever is responsible, though he eventually has to admit that he condoned 'a single' cloning, and that the boy is not the first son. Unsurprisingly, the boy, already fragile, is very discomposed, rocked by the realisation that much of his family story is a fiction.

We meet two other versions of the son, one chillingly damaged, the other blithely unconcerned by his predicament. Before we know where we are, the play has stopped being about the 'issue' of cloning, and rather proves itself to be a brilliant exploration of the tensions and poisons inherent in a complex father/son relationship, especially when the parent turns out to be a deeply flawed person, whose efforts to turn over a new leaf and start again have been fatefully assisted by the technology of cloning. The damage caused ripples outwards despite all the father's evasions and vain attempts to control a situation spiralling into unforeseen consequences.

The strangeness of the situation is underscored by breathtaking set changes which occur in short blackouts, taking full advantage of our eyes' temporary inability to adjust to near total darkness after viewing a well-lit scene. But Salter, the father, is in every space; we are doubtless seeing the same room from different angles (an idea explored in a number of different plays and operas recently, but rarely achieved so quickly). Roger Allam seems easy-going and well-meaning, but gradually we realise there are failings that he has concealed, or that he believes  he has outgrown, and it is clear that he is more complicit in the situation than he wishes to concede. Colin Morgan, in a performance of stunning technical assurance, plays the three versions of the son with complete confidence, by turns insecure and unhappy, dangerously angry, and bafflingly content. Curiously, the father, desperate to have made a good job of parenting, is most perplexed by the last visitor, a seemingly well-adjusted version of the son he professed to love so much, but the one he has never seen as a child.

In just an hour Caryl Churchill has explored deep themes of guilt, love, responsibility, loss and hope with a consummate theatrical flare, and this is a fine production of her work.