In the 2002 production, the stage was described by one critic as a “bare blank design” with “no relation to domestic realism.” [3] The costumes of the play were as simple as the stage design. Salter: What? What is the source of our individuality? Caryl Churchill, British playwright whose work frequently dealt with feminist issues, the abuses of power, and sexual politics. Caryl Churchill is not a playwright who repeats herself. "[11] Conversely, Jane Shillings of The Telegraph argued, "The highly wrought writing veers at times towards the mannered, leaving a faint sense that the style of Churchill’s play exceeds its substance, and the issue of cloning has lost its urgency". Bernard 2: yes but it’s not me over there.”. Bernard 2: A twin would be a surprise but a number The play won the 2002 Evening Standard Award for Best Play.[5]. A tight two-hander taking place in a not-too-far off future, Churchill's play is a philosophical investigation into free will and the question of nature versus nurture. T / F . [19] Starring Rhys Ifans and Tom Wilkinson, it was broadcast on BBC Two on 10 Sep 2008.[20]. Continue Reading. In February/March 2009, the play made its Los Angeles/Orange County debut at the Rude Guerrilla Theater Company in a production directed by Scott Barber, starring Vince Campbell and Mark Coyan. [8], Steve Dinneen argued in City A.M. that the work "is remarkable in the way it so gracefully touches upon the great philosophical questions without ever feeling didactic. A tight two-hander taking place in a not-too-far off future, Churchill's play is a philosophical investigation into free will and the question of nature versus nurture. Hoctor grounds his argument on a phenomenological theory of the ‘minimal self’: according to Dan Zahavi, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Copenhagen, the self in its most minimal sense – leaving out life story, social connections, personal traits etc. [8] James M. Brandon had mixed sentiments in Theatre Journal, arguing that while it "is a wellwritten play—evocative, disturbing, and with more than one surprise—it remains a troubled one that seems, in production, unfinished. " Salter always wore a rumpled looking suit, sometimes expensive looking, but sometimes not. T / F. At the hospital B2 met some of the clones. A Number is a full-length drama by Caryl Churchill. The play A Number by Caryl Churchill shows the features of postmodern plays. He has learned the truth about the situation, and now hates Salter for what he has done. (1991) Her play, "Top Girls", was performed at the Royal Court Theatre in London, England with Lesley Manville, Deborah Findlay, Lesley Sharp in the cast. At that time, Caryl was only 10 years old. Ben Brantley of The New York Times described A Number as "stunning" and "a gripping dramatic consideration of what happens to autonomous identity in a world where people can be cloned". You can never be quite sure what to expect walking into a Caryl Churchill play. That is a simple statement of fact. Salter: A number any number is a shock.”, Twins are natural clones: they are two organisms that evolved from one fertilised egg and carry the identical genetic makeup as each other. It seemed claustrophobic. Imp., while the National revived possibly her most famous play, Top Girls. And then there is another question: Can we measure the value of a human being at all? /. a number, caryl churchill, Cloud Nine, playwright, season 18-19, ... she explained, “I was fed up with the situation I found myself in in the 1960’s. In the next scene, angry Bernard 1 visits Salter for the first time since his childhood while Bernard 2 is away. Salter decides that they should sue the doctors, which soothes the shaken Bernard 2. BERNARD B2 has just been to the hospital. And does the original lose anything, its identity or value, by being copied? The play was revived at The Nuffield Theatre (Southampton) in February 2014 with John and Lex Shrapnel to huge critical acclaim. Lillian Wilde (right) is a philosopher and visual artist. Her innovations in this regard are sometimes so startling and compelling that reviewers tend to focus on the novelty of her works to the exclusion of her ideas. Salter then decides to meet the other clones of his son, starting with the one named Michael Black. Caryl Churchill's A Number is a play that explores the issue of human cloning through the relationships between a father and his three sons. Salter explains that he agreed to a cloning experiment to try again at parenting another version of his son, but, unbeknownst to Salter, the doctors had unethically made several more clones. Required fields are marked *, - Get an estimate Get the Script. Asked differently, is a twin less valuable than someone whose genetic material is unique? A Number is an original work published in 2002 in association with the Royal Court Theatre of London. That Theatre, an English-language theatre group in Copenhagen, is staging the play ‘A Number’ by Caryl Churchill in February and March 2018. Anyway, great work. Caryl Churchill’s magnificent play only lasts an hour but contains more drama, and more ideas, than most writers manage in a dozen full-length works. General Comprehension. [10] After watching a performance featuring John and Lex Shrapnel, Lyn Gardner of The Guardian dubbed the play "[p]unchy, compact and endlessly inquisitive," arguing that it "is no simple warning against the perils of science messing with nature, but a complex and humane study of parental guilt, regret and responsibility and what it really means to be a father or son. His double is a cooler version of himself. This week on 'Bee' Reviewed is one of the more unique plays that I've come across, A Number by Caryl Churchill published in 2002. Salter demands to know more about him, particularly about something personal and unique, but Michael cannot answer, and Salter is unsatisfied with what Michael can give him. Upgrade to A + Download this LitChart! I have noticed you don’t monetize your blog, don’t waste your traffic, you can earn additional bucks every month. I will add to Vania’s point above, and use the opportunity to name drop Dostoyevsky’s ‘The Double’. A Number is a 2002 play by English playwright Caryl Churchill which addresses the subject of human cloning and identity, especially nature versus nurture. In the play, the concern is raised about originality . Special Events . Is he an original or a copy? This beguiling thriller delves into the ethical issue of human cloning while exploring second chances. He argues instead that twinship is “a joint enterprise which includes a sense of self and other.”. That element of surprise is one among many reasons why she has had such a long and successful career – it takes a special kind of talent as a writer to keep audiences entertained and engrossed for over half a century. – can be understood as someone’s first-person-perspective. [13] In the Chicago Tribune, Chris Jones described A Number as "masterfully written". I wonder if the author had Freud’s idea of the Doppelgänger in mind when writing the script. Her mother was a fashion model, Jan. Caryl Churchill. Caryl Churchill’s play ‘A Number’ is about the ethics of human cloning – at least on the surface. Here is how a Twitter campaign is putting global health on the agenda, 143,000 people have seen Maria’s biological experiments, Mike Young Academy uses cookies to improve your site experience, the debate we typically associate with cloning, twinship is “a joint enterprise which includes a sense of self and other.”, Apps to make Twitter more effective for scientists, The real time Twitter window: What you miss if you only pre-schedule tweets, Scientists in Denmark – the top 100 on social media, Copenhagen scientists – the top 100 on social media in 2020, Webinar: Boost your research career with Twitter and LinkedIn – course at University of Copenhagen. Together, he and his father confront epic questions of identity, intimacy and belonging. Is it money? Our Teacher Edition on Top Girls can help. Her father was a political cartoonist named Robert Churchill. The play leaves out the debate we typically associate with cloning. There are two problems with this in applying it to a human (or any other conscious being): the concept of the minimal self tells us that there is, in fact, a unique self to every conscious being. Caryl Churchill was born in London on September 3rd, 1938. Thank you Vania for your interesting point. Caryl Churchill's A Number is a play that explores the issue of human cloning through the relationships between a father and his three sons. ‘A Number’ premiered at That Theatre Company in Copenhagen on the 21st February 2018, following a panel debate with Joshua M. Brickman, Professor of Stem Cell and Developmental Biology, Mickey Gjerris, Associate Professor in Bioethics, and Pia Søltoft, Vicar of the Marble Church (Marmorkirken) with Mike Young as moderator. Dineen wrote that Salter's interludes "say as much as an hour’s worth of dialogue". She was educated at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, where she read English. It does not follow the traditional beginning, middle and end structure. The play leaves out the debate we typically associate with cloning. [12] Don Aucoin of The Boston Globe praised the way the playwright "devotes no time to preamble or writerly throat-clearing, but plunges us straightaway into the play’s central dilemma". "[15] Clive Davis of The Times, however, panned the play as "both too short and too long" after seeing the same performance. The play debuted at the Royal Court Theatre in London on 23 September 2002. It has long been proved that expression via acting is more direct than when the audience accesses literature in other means. Request license. In this guest blog post, she asks some existential questions about a soon-to-be-staged play on human cloning. Michael, who never knew Salter, is a happily married maths teacher with three children. The play was written during a time of public debate over the ethics of cloning. Is the copy worth less? Salter, stricken with grief, demands to know the details, but Bernard 1 refuses to say anything. One day he learns the shocking truth: he is just one of a number of clones. Salter: because if that’s me over there who am I? “Bernard 2: someone like you couldn’t have tried harder… If you’d tried harder you’d have been different from what you were like and you weren’t.”. The fact that I experience from my very own point-of-view that is different to everyone else’s is enough to account for the fact that I am me; whether I have a twin with the same genetic material as me or not. The cloning of Dolly the sheep, the creation of human embryos at Advanced Cell Technology, and the cloning of a kitten[2] gave rise to controversy concerning possible human cloning. In 2004, the play made its American debut at the New York Theatre Workshop in a production starring Sam Shepard (later played by Arliss Howard) and Dallas Roberts. A Number (Play) Plot & Characters | StageAgent A Number – review. Interesting article Lillian, and I am really looking forward to seeing the play in February! This leads me to my last inquiry. A Number. 4 days ago, CROSSDEM 2021 - Cross Disciplinary Approaches to Prehistoric Demography - conference 17 March by, 'European digital sovereignty - Strategic autonomy in the realm of new tech' - 17 December by, Social media for researchers (live seminar or webinar), English-language proofreading of PhD dissertations, theses and articles, Salter: Even one, a twin, would be a shock, Bernard 2: A twin would be a surprise but a number. T / F . Caryl Churchill. Later, after Bernard 1 has left, Bernard 2 returns, having met Bernard 1 in the park. Instead, Churchill takes human cloning as a framework for philosophical considerations. Lillian Wilde is a graduate in the field of phenomenology. A number. When Salter's son, Bernard, is told that he's a result of a cloning experiment, he finds out that he's one of an unknown number of human clones. "[17] Andrzej Lukowski of Time Out called the play a "masterpiece". A Number by Caryl Churchill. PhD candidate at the University of Kent and specialised twin researcher James W. Hoctor, disagrees with the widespread notion that twins form a singular entity or that they possess a ‘we-self’. The play was revived at the Sheffield Crucible studio in October 2006 starring real-life father and son Timothy West and Samuel West. The story, set in the near future, is structured around the conflict between a father (Salter) and his sons (Bernard 1, Bernard 2, and Michael Black) – two of whom are clones of the first one. Many critics over the years have lauded A Number, arguing Churchill created a work of significant intellectual depth with effective economy of style. A tight two-hander taking place in a not-too-far off future, Churchill's play is a philosophical investigation into free will and the question of nature versus nurture. 3 days ago, - "A Number." "[16][9] Arjun Neil Alim of The Independent stated that "Churchill, a political playwright par excellence, tactfully references current events. The worry seems to be twofold: Is a copy less ‘real’ than an original? At 81, Caryl Churchill is still going strong: last year, the Royal Court premiered a quartet of her latest short plays, Glass.Kill. Born in London on September 3, 1938, Caryl Churchill grew up in England and Canada. All the illustrations for this article are by her. Caryl Churchill addresses these issues entertainingly, and with increasing urgency in ‘A Number’. What is the value of a human life? Previewing from 14 February and running for only 4 weeks. Bluebeard. Why was he created? [14] Richard Pahl of Northwest Herald billed A Number as an "engaging meditation on human cloning, personal identity and the conflicting claims of nature and nurture". With Cloning, Kitty - New York Times." I didn’t like being a barrister’s wife and going out to dinner with other professional people and dealing with middle-class life. Caryl Churchill (born 3 September 1938, London) has become well known for her willingness to experiment with dramatic structure. http://mikeyoungacademy.dk/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/not-like-me-at-all-w.jpg, http://mikeyoungacademy.dk/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/MikeYoung_logo-1-300x154.png, A Number by Caryl Churchill – a philosophical analysis. Plot Summary. Playwright Caryl Churchill was born on 3 September 1938 in London and grew up in the Lake District and in Montreal. Bernard 1 then leaves and kills himself, leaving Salter alone. Caryl Churchill (born 3 September 1938) is a British playwright known for dramatising the abuses of power, for her use of non- naturalistic techniques, and for … The play was produced around the time of the Dolly sheep cloning experiment and clearly is impacted by the ethical, moral, legal, …