A Number (York Theatre Royal)

Set (as far as we are aware) in the near future, Caryl Churchill‘s 2002 play, A Number, uses the uneasy subject of human cloning to examine themes of family, identity and nature versus nurture.

The play opens with Salter, an ageing man, being confronted by Bernard 2, his adult son, who has just found out there are "a number" of identical clones of him, apparently made from his DNA. To a lesser or greater degree, this revelation comes as a shock to both men.

Salter carries a lot of secrets. He has long-hidden actions from his past which he is now forced to reveal under interrogation from his son, who understandably has a lot of questions he wants answered about his history and his genesis.

To protect both himself and his son, Salter initially attempts to lie his way out the situation, but this becomes impossible when his "first" son, Bernard 1, re-enters Salter’s life for the first time since he was separated from his father as a child. Bernard 1, raging and resentful, also has questions, but Salter, overwhelmed, is ill equipped to answer them.

What develops is an exploration of nature versus nurture; how much of who we are comes from our inherited DNA and how much is governed by the way we are raised? It also looks at the theme of identity. Who are we? What, if anything, makes us unique or individual?

These are profound and universal questions that Churchill doesn’t attempt to answer, arguably because they are fundamentally unanswerable, but by using the intimate and familiar father/son relationship she is able to crystallise the arguments and present something nebulous in a very engaging and thought-provoking way.

Salter and Bernard are played by real-life father and son George and Niall Costigan. Niall, perhaps, has the trickier role(s), having to represent three seemingly identical, yet essentially different, characters with no more than the basic actor’s tools. George Costigan is the rock around which all the action revolves. He portrays myriad emotions, from anger to guilt to remorse to self-pity, with assured finesse. Through his considerable skill he manages to take a morally questionable character, an alcoholic and negligent father, and make him sympathetic.

The two actors handle the fast-paced and dissonant dialogue impressively, helped in no small way by Juliet Forster‘s direction and Gem Greaves‘ set; the subtlety of both puts all the focus on the actors and the text, where it undoubtedly belongs.

A Number continues at York Theatre Royal until 24 May 2014.