REVIEW: A NUMBER at Everyman in Baltimore

Clocking in at 65 minutes, there is a lot to digest in Caryl Churchill’s play, A Number, now being presented by Everyman Theatre.  It is an extremely dense evening, and in some ways that is good, but mostly it is bad.

Everyman, as always, has produced a high-quality, extremely professional evening.  Nearly everything about it is as good as it could possibly be, and yet the evening left me flat, and annoyed.  Usually, when I leave a play, and I can’t get it out of my head (Everyman’s The Cripple of Inishmaan was an excellent example) I think of it as a major success.  Here, however, while I did think about it for sometime, it was for the wrong reason; I kept thinking, “There has to be more to this play than I am getting.” And I kept thinking, and thinking.  And thinking. And nothing.  And still nothing. Hmmm. Now I am annoyed.  I can’t stop thinking about it, and I keep coming up with the same thought: great idea, lousy play, and excellent execution.

The idea behind the play (and I’ll try not to spoil too much) is that human cloning has taken place, and the consequences are being unexpectedly brought to bear.  Great idea, and so timely, too!  In this day and age where stem cell research is a hot political issue, animals are being cloned, and human body parts are being reproduced on the backs of lab mice, this whole concept is just ripe with dramatic possibility.  Instead, Churchill has provided a mercifully brief father-son (sons) drama, where the only question that even comes close to being answered is should the clones meet each other?   The rest is a shockingly old school drama/melodrama that covers the same old ground that has been done much better elsewhere. (Death of a Salesman, All My Sons, Long Day’s Journey Into Night come readily to mind).  As usual, we get the father who feels he’s failed, tries for a second chance, blows it, the generations come face-to-face, and have it out.  Aside from the fact that there is little resolution offered, the major thing that is missing is that somehow, you come away not really caring about either the father or any of his sons.

That lack of caring certainly is not the fault of Kyle Prue (Bernard), who has made the very most of a challenging role – 3 variations on the same theme.  He has done an excellent job of creating three distinct men, with the added hardship that he must include enough similarities between all three that we buy into the fact that he is three of a number of the same person.  His portrayals give the audience the closest thing to something to care about.  To go into too much detail about his performance would give away too much plot, but there is one sequence where he sits staring wordlessly for several minutes.  That silence created a palpable and escalating tension that was both mesmerizing and terrifying.  His performance alone makes this must-see theatre.

The same, however, cannot be said for the father half of this duo, Salter, played by Bill Hamlin.  Looking incredulous for nearly the entire hour, Hamlin pretty much delivers a one-note performance.  Need someone to simultaneously play panic/disbelief/fear?  He is your go-to man.  The trouble is, he never varies it, hence the singular facial expression he has crafted.  It wears thin quickly, which leaves most of the work to Mr. Prue.  Not all of it is Mr. Hamlin’s fault; after all, even someone as talented as he clearly is can’t create something out of what isn’t there in the first place.  It is pretty clear that Ms. Churchill had a slightly better grip on the sons than the father.  Actually, this might have been better as a one-man vehicle - a serious version of Fully Committed, perhaps.

Technically, as has become the standard of Everyman Theatre, A Number is pretty close to flawless.  Director Vincent M. Lancisi has directed the play at a brisk pace – not everyone can get a play that is mostly a dialogue of unfinished sentences to make sense – and even the scene changes are sharp, structured and full of meaning.  He has assembled a superb design team.  The costumes (by Kathleen Geldard) are simple and really help create a visual to go with the mental exercise of watching clones.  The lighting (by Colin K. Bills), both stark (during the play) and moody (during the scene changes) adds much to the proceedings.  And the sound (by Chas Marsh), particularly the sci-fi countdown of numbers by a robotic sounding woman, set the scene very well.

It has to be said, here and now, that Daniel Ettinger, who apparently designs sets for everyone in Baltimore, is nothing short of genius.  His unit set, made of mirror-tiled walls, a severe doorway, leading down a black hallway, and two chairs, a side table and lamp, does more in support of what this play is trying to say, than the entire 65 intermissionless minutes of dialogue.  Why this man isn’t a staple on Broadway is a mystery, but New York’s loss is definitely Baltimore’s gain.  The angle of the mirrored set walls reflects down on a repeat patterned floor, which mirrors (no pun intended) the replicating pattern of the mirror tiles themselves.  But even more ingeniously, the mirrors also reflect the actors in such a way that at any given moment we can see two or more of each of them.  In a play about cloning, that is really pregnant with meaning – subtle and definitely NOT heavy-handed.

Having had the opportunity in the space of one week to see two marvelously produced works by the same playwright (the other, Cloud 9, at Towson University), I can only come to two possible conclusions.  One: I just don’t like plays that try really hard (too hard?) to be about something, but are so wrapped up in cleverness that they never really pay off.  Two: The companies that produced them are better than the material.  I think both conclusions are right.

(PHOTO by Stan Barouh: Kyle Prue (L) and Bill Hamlin (R) in A Number at Everyman Theatre)