A Number

           The way that Churchill devises his play A Number without almost any stage directions is masterful. The reason I am putting this type of narration in such high praise is because somehow the author has found a way to keep an audience invested and suspended in tension without spoon-feeding any of the plot or characterization. Even thought I was sort of confused throughout most of the play, I was glad that it wasn’t dumbed down just for the people like me who couldn’t keep up the first time.  The dialogue was so interesting that there was essentially no need to stage directions. The plot focused around these people conversing and there really are not any stage directions that would have furthered the story or characterization of these characters. You understand everything you need to about Salter, B1, B2, or Michael Black, mostly because the author wants you to be mostly in the dark about them. If the reader was to know everything about these characters, the story would be much more boring and predictable. You could learn a lot about the different ambitions from, say, how Salter talks with B1 or B2. He tells each son different stories and lies to both of them, obviously showing that he cares more about his relationship with his sons than being honest with people.

            I don’t think that the cloning idea is as controversial as the public makes it out to be. I have never been that up to date on the cloning situations, but it seems like a no brainer to me. While there are certain aspects that would seem beneficial (being able to pick gender of baby, being able to select attributes) there are too many things that could go wrong for it to be worth it. The clones being aware that they are clones is just a recipe for disaster. They would obviously become jealous of their own identity and not be able to accept that they are not completely unique, as is what I believed happened in A Number. When B1 figured out that he was not Salter’s only son, even though the other was cloned from B1, he acts out of jealousy and kills B2. This would not have happened if B1 was not aware that he was a clone.

            I also think that it is interesting to note how the play is structured beyond saying that there are no stage directions. Almost every conversation seems to start in the middle and it gives you little inclinations about what they said previous to the reader stepping in. This makes you feel like you’ve just stepped into the conversation as a third party, not as an all-knowing god like narrator. This makes the play seem much more believable than if it were an omniscient narrator.