A Number (Paperback)

by Caryl Churchill (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review
'A Number confirms Churchill's status as the first dramatist of the 21st century. On the face of it, it is about human cloning... Like all Churchill's best plays, A Number deals with both the essentials and the extremities of human experience... The questions this brilliant, harrowing play asks are almost unanswerable, which is why they must be asked' Sunday Times 'Caryl Churchill's magnificent new play only lasts an hour but contains more drama , and more ideas, than most writers manage in a dozen full-length works' Daily Telegraph 'Caryl Churchill never stands still. After the dystopian nightmare of Far Away, she now comes up with a challenging new form of moral inquiry. And the key question she ask in this play is from what the essential core of self derives: from nature or nurture, genetic inheritance or environmental circumstance?' Guardian --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Description

Caryl Churchill, hailed by Tony -Kushner as "the greatest living English language playwright," has turned her extraordinary dramatic gifts to the subject of human cloning -- how might a man feel to discover that he is only one in a number of identical copies. And which one of him is the original. . . ? A Number opens in London's Royal Court Theatre in October, directed by Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliot).

Caryl Churchill is the author of some twenty plays including Cloud Nine, Top Girls, The Skriker, Blue Heart and Far Away.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 64 pages
• Publisher: Theatre Communications Group (May 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1559362251
• ISBN-13: 978-1559362252
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.1 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #419,550 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Near-future science becomes a domestic nightmare, January 21, 2005

By	Steven Reynolds (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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.

4.0 out of 5 stars Cloning and identity issues dramatized, June 24, 2008

By	T. Fleming "piggydiva" (Western Kansas, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Churchill is never one to shy from difficult subjects, and this play is no different. Here she explores the emotional (as well as legal) aspects of cloning and what identity really means. In each section, Father meets with three of his "sons", all clones, to try to hammer out their complicated relationship with him, his "original" son, and to each other. A good read. Would be OK for college or professional production, but high schools and community productions wouldn't be able to pull it off.