A fascinating meditation on human cloning, personal identity and the conflicting claims of nature and nurture.
Bernard thought he was an only child. One day he learns the shocking truth: he is just one of a number of clones. Together, he and his father confront epic questions of identity, intimacy and belonging.
Caryl Churchill's play A Number pushes the boundaries of science and ethics with an astonishing twist on the dynamics of the father/son relationship. It was originally produced at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in 2002, winning the Evening Standard Award for Best Play.
'A masterpiece... devastating'
— Time Out
'A wonderfully unsettling triumph'
— Independent
'A bleak and beautiful play... one emerges as ever stunned by the sheer breadth of Churchill's imagination'
— The Arts Desk
'A Number confirms Churchill's status as the first dramatist of the 21st century... 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. Part psychological thriller, part topical scientific speculation, and part analysis of the relationship between fathers and their sons, it combines elegant structural simplicity with an astonishing intellectual and emotional depth...What a tremendous play this is, moving thought-provoking and dramatically thrilling'
— Daily Telegraph
'Rarely in my theatre-going experience has a new play conveyed such a disturbing or enthralling impression of domestic weirdness that some families may endure in a not entirely hypothetical future... It's an astonishing event'
— Evening Standard
Best Play, Evening Standard Awards
Author Biography:
Caryl Churchill is a leading playwright who has written widely for the stage, television and radio.
Her stage plays include: Owners (Royal Court Theatre, London, 1972); Objections to Sex and Violence (Royal Court, 1975); Light Shining in Buckinghamshire (Joint Stock, 1976); Vinegar Tom (Monstrous Regiment, 1976); Traps (Royal Court, 1977); Cloud Nine (Joint Stock, 1979); Three More Sleepless Nights (Soho Poly and Royal Court, 1980); Top Girls (Royal Court, 1982); Fen (Joint Stock, 1983); Softcops (RSC, 1984); A Mouthful of Birds with David Lan (Joint Stock, 1986); Serious Money (Royal Court and Wyndham's, London, then Public Theater, New York, 1987); Icecream (Royal Court, 1989); Mad Forest (Central School of Speech and Drama, then Royal Court, 1990); Lives of the Great Poisoners with Orlando Gough and Ian Spink (Second Stride, 1991); The Skriker (Royal National Theatre, 1994); Thyestes translated from Seneca (Royal Court, 1994); Hotel with Orlando Gough and Ian Spink (Second Stride, 1997); This is a Chair (Royal Court, 1997); Blue Heart (Joint Stock, 1997); Far Away (Royal Court, 2000, and Albery, London, 2001, then New York Theatre Workshop, 2002); A Number (Royal Court, 2002, then New York Theatre Workshop, 2004); A Dream Play after Strindberg (Royal National Theatre, 2005); Drunk Enough to Say I Love You? (Royal Court, 2006, then Public Theater, New York, 2008); Bliss, translated from Olivier Choinière (Royal Court, 2008); Seven Jewish Children – a play for Gaza (Royal Court, 2009); Love and Information (Royal Court, 2012); Ding Dong the Wicked (Royal Court, 2012); Here We Go (National Theatre, 2015); Escaped Alone (Royal Court, 2016), Pigs and Dogs (Royal Court, 2016), Glass. Kill. Bluebeard. Imp. (Royal Court, 2019) and What If If Only (Royal Court, 2021).
