Caryl Churchill's A number: multiple personalities in contemporary tragedy

Staging A Number (2002) by Caryl Churchill, one of the most significant contemporary British playwrights, became a major theatrical event in several countries - Great Britain, Australia, Italy, Spain, Russia, Germany, Czech Republic, Japan, Canada and Brazil among them. Obviously, Caryl Churchill managed to touch upon burning issues which stirred public interest worldwide. More specifically, the motives of cloning, cloning ethics, human individuality and parent-child relations are intricately intertwined in A Number.

At the turn of the new millennium the socially relevant issue of cloning positively captured audiences' attention. Unpredictably enough for Caryl Churchill, who often handles feminist matter on stage, this drama only involves two male actors1. Two actors play four characters, yielding a new, deeper theatrical dimension to the play. The characters are Salter, a man in his sixties, and his three sons (Bernard 1, a 40-year-old «original» of the son; Bernard 2, his younger 'copy', 35; Michael Black, 35, another clone of Bernard 1).

® Yevgenia Shilova, 2012

Lyn Gardner, a British theatre critic and a columnist of The Guardian shares the ideas which tend to be common for the whole humanity as a kind of foreword to the play analysis: «Like everyone else, I share about 30% of my genes with the lettuce. [...] Actually, I think I am a pretty unique human being, even though I share 99% of my genes with the rest of the human race» [Gardner 2006]. Until recently the ideas also seemed obvious to Bernard 2. However, getting this illusion of uniqueness destroyed turns out to be the starting point for the action in drama: Salter's son becomes aware of his status of a clone. The repercussions of this discovery have a great impact on the lives of all the characters.

The main plot evidently prompts the title of the play - the work features a certain number of Bernards with a common genome. Multiple meanings of the English word 'number' result in a peculiar cross-reference of the semantic connotations of the word. First, it may mean a certain amount of objects; secondly, the definite number of an object in an array; thirdly, an object sharing similar characteristics with some other members of the same set (Bernard 1, Bernard 2, etc); finally, it may signify the grammatical category of number.

To my mind, Caryl Churchill's A Number is more than a study of cloning ethics (though this theme and many similarly controversial ones are investigated in her later 'ecological' drama). This piece of theatre poses the philosophical question of the sources of human identity, individuality as well as the eternal issue of parent-child relationship.

The playwright creates quite an «intimate», secluded atmosphere on stage due to the minimized commentary and writer's remarks as well as to the singular language of the play. A Number is intentionally elliptical. The characters seem to communicate with each other by means of half-formed thoughts, anticipating the interlocutor's answers and reactions. The accentuated ellipsis of the narrative involves the spectator (and the reader) and - at the same time - produces cognitive tension.

B2 A number

Salter you mean

B2 a number of them, of us, a considerable

Salter say

В2 ten, twenty

Salter didn't you ask?

B2     I got the impression

Salter why didn't you ask?

B2     I didn't think of asking.

Salter I can't think why not, it seems to me it would be the first thing you'd want to know, how far has this thing gone, how many of these things are there?² [Churchill 2008:165]

The language of the play and its shifting reality make the work challenging for perception: trying to look to advantage and to conceal his wounded feelings Salter is constantly «ге-writing» the past of his family, leaving the audience at a loss as to which version of the family history is true. The elderly man first rejected his involvement in the cloning experiment (which he actually paid for). Then he tried to hide the reason for parting with his first son (Bernard 1), the cause of his wife's death, his addiction to alcohol and drugs... Nevertheless, with all its contradictions and sharp edges, Salter and Bernards' family narrative looks somewhat as follows.

Salter lost his wife to clinical depression and suicide when he was still a young man. Two next years made Salter feel the bitterness of being a single parent to the full. His son, Bernard 1, could not help suffering either - the boy often lacked attention, care and affection. When the tension of the father-son relationship reached its climax, and communication boiled down to nothing, the child was taken away from the family. It is not quite made clear who did it, but one may suppose social service workers' participation. Paying for his son's cloning gives Salter a chance to start his relation with Bernard from a clean slate, which he succeeds in. So up to the day when Bernard 2 learned he was another man's clone, his life was peaceful and unremarkable. However, the medical staff of the cloning laboratory created 19 more copies of Bernard for further experiments without giving anyone notice.

Bernard 2’s reaction to this most unusual news is peculiar: the man is not only struck by the existence of 20 genetically identical people, he is not only keen to emphasize the uniqueness of his personality, but is also offended at his being a copy, not the «initial» version of the son. At the same time Bernard 2 fears that Salter's

«original» son may rightfully want to get rid of his more fortunate and younger clone.

Unlike Salter and Bernard 2, who do their best to find ways out of the situation (which vary from benefitting from the incident financially to just thinking positive), Bernard 1 is openly spiteful to his father and the luckier copy of his self, who turned out to steal an average, but a comparatively happy childhood from him. One often gets the impression that the world is too small a place for both Bernards, and their meeting is doomed to have some tragic consequences.

Bl The other one. Your son. My brother is he? my little twin.

Salter Yes.

Bl Has he got a child?

Salter No.

Bl     Because if he had I'd kill it (184-185).

Besides the feeling of unease, the two brothers also share hate for their father: Bernard 1 cannot forgive his distorted childhood and the frantic desire to belong which guides all his actions even when he becomes an adult; Bernard 2, in his turn, gets deprived of the very ontological bases of existence - the ideas of his birth, his father and the status of the real and the artificial in his life.

B2 I remind myself of him. We both hate you.

Salter I thought you

B2 I don't blame you it's not your fault but what you've been like what you're like I can't help it.

Salter Yes of course.

B2 Except what he feels as hate and what I feel as hate are completely different because what you did to him and what you did to me are different things (194).

The inevitable denouement follows the brothers' meeting -driven by vengeance, Bernard 1 kills Bernard 2, who escaped from home to obtain new values in the changed frame of his life. The murder, however, turns out unbearable even for Bernard 1, thus he commits suicide. Peter Marks, a Washington Post critic, sums the incident up with bitter irony: 'When, in the end, Salter has to face up to the scale of the disaster he's unleashed, the terrible mathematics lesson of A Number is at last imparted: that one plus one can add up to nothing' [Marks 2004].

All circumstances considered, Salter remains the most impenetrable figure on stage. As soon as the reader gets even an approximate idea of the man's character and life principles, Salter destroys that convention.

On the one hand, Salter's ability to treat his sons as 'human material' is striking. When handled properly, this material can yield a work of art. Following the same logic, one can create a better sample out of the same primary product. On the other hand, Bernard's father evokes sympathy as he gives the impression of a baffled man bonded to his sons by love and guilt. There's yet another idea one may get from the performance - that of Salter's elusive nature. The elderly man frequently 'mirrors' the interlocutor (whether that is Bernard 2, raised with affection, or Bernard 1, the beloved son's murderer), trying to meet his expectations.

B2 They're all your sons.

Salter I don't want a number of sons, thank you, you're plenty, I'm fine.

B2 Maybe after they've found everything out they'll let us meet. They'll have a party for us, we can

Salter I'm not going to drink with those doctors. But maybe you're right you're right, take it in a positive spirit (170).

Salter Nobody regrets more than me the completely unforeseen unforeseeable which isn't my fault and does make it more upsetting but what I did did seem at the time the only and also it's a tribute, I could have had a different one, a new child altogether that's what most people but I wanted you again because I thought you were the best.

Bl It wasn't me again.

Salter No but the same basic the same raw materials because they were perfect. You were the most beautiful baby everyone said. As a child too you were very pretty, very pretty child (181-182).

Though the play can by no means be classified as 'feminist', the image of Salter may signify a patriarchal Father figure able to decide a person's fate of his own free will. Here we can even refer to two fathers: the biological and the 'scientific' one. The former awaits recognition for at least preserving Bernard l's life

Salter [...] I spared you though you were this disgusting thing by then anyone in their right mind would have squashed you [...] (197).

The latter, some 'crazy old professor' barely mentioned in the play, created 20 experimental copies of Bernard 1, unmindful of the consequences.

Notwithstanding the sensational motive of cloning, human subjectivity and the unique features making up our ego are still the most important issues of A Number. In this search the characters resort to various strategies - for instance, Salter's attempt to put a price on human identity is ridiculous.

Salter [...] you should get your rights [...] what? is it money? is it something you can put a figure on? put a figure on it. [...]

B2 suppose each person was worth ten thousand pounds

Salter a hundred

B2 a hundred thousand?

Salter they've taken a person away from you

B2 times the number of people

Salter which we don't know

B2 but a number a fairly large say anyway ten

Salter a million is the least you should take, I think it's more like half a million each person because what they've done they've damaged your uniqueness, weakened your identity, so we're looking at five million for a start (168-169).

Salter's persistent effort to benefit from the accident which shattered his peaceful existence and took away his son's life is despicably pathetic. Absurd as it is, the lonely father even tries to bond with his forsaken offspring, Bernard 1, by suggesting they make a fortune out of the whole misery.

Having eventually lost both Bernards, Salter finds a way to divert his mind: the character is trying to single out his other biological sons' unique features, the ones that could make the young men special for their father. Salter turns to a Michael Black, a school teacher and another clone of Bernard's, for help. Black is kindly trying to please the father, telling Salter about significant episodes of his life, his relatives, his attitude to war and even his favourite position for sleep. Salter, however, remains dissatisfied - the peculiarities listed do not give him access to his sons' individuality and do not allow him to find anything in common with the offspring. Surprisingly, Black does not even claim to be special.

Michael We've got ninety-nine per cent the same genes as any other person. We've got ninety per cent the same as a chimpanzee. We've got thirty percent the same as a lettuce. Does that cheer you up at all? I love about the lettuce. It makes me feel I belong (205).

Saying banal things, being ordinary and satisfied with it, Michael Black appears to be the only plain and happy person in A Number. So, right when it seems like the cloning experiment has yielded singularly tragic results, a positive perspective of the 'bigger picture' opens up. Michael Black actually impersonates the average happy individual that both unfortunate Bernards were dreaming to become.

Salter And you're happy you say are you? you like your life?

Michael I do yes, sorry (206).

Though the argument about the sources of identity is resolved in the play (relations with the Other and family connections prove to be crucial), the ethical ambivalence of the finale leaves the reader / spectator at a loss as to the message of the drama. Churchill's creative principle is that the playwright does not impose any point of view on the audience, but marks the problematic area of contemporary reality. The director of the American version of the play James Macdonald sides with the opinion: T don't know how much I think about the ethical. That sounds a bit alarming, doesn't it? I always think it's alarming if a writer seems to be peddling a particular line on something and I think good writers, extremely good writers, will not peddle a line. Just when you think they are peddling a line, they do the opposite. But any good play makes life more complex. If you know what the play's going to say then it's hardly worth going to see' [Kilpatrick 2004].

One can't but pay attention to the fact that the play is defined as 'tragedy' in terms of genre in many critical sources. A Number does display a number of features inherent to the classical tragedy: change of fortune from good to bad; recognition; the protagonist, seeking vengeance. But it is hardly appropriate to apply this genre definition to the full as some key peculiarities of the tragedy cannot be identified in Churchill's play. There's no tragic guilt (a mistake resulting from ignorance) and no exemplary tragic hero. Salter's principal mistake, in my view, consists not only in cloning his son Bernard, but in his conscious, intentional refusal to bring up his own child. Thus, Bernard's father can barely meet the definition of the tragic hero as such a person who does not undergo a change to misfortune because of vice and wickedness. In connection with A Number it is more important to get distracted from the classical tragedy characteristics and focus on the tragic outlook of a person in the new millennium, searching for his identity in the world of copies, in the atmosphere of loosened or broken family ties.

Notes

• 1.    Though the experimental theatre group 'Baby' (Бабы) based in Chelyabinsk did produce a version of the play in which two actresses were playing the parts in male suits.

• 2.    Further references to this edition only indicate the number of page in brackets. The playwright's punctuation is fully preserved in citations.