Ushering for charity

What would you do if you discovered that you had been cloned?

How many clones? Well, a number.....

And thus, we have the plot of Caryl Churchill's play A Number, one of the two current productions at the Studio Theater in Washington, D.C.

A Number is a fairly new play, only about three years old, and it certainly presents modern issues requiring some deep thought on the part of theatergoers. Now, the Studio Theater's promotional materials said that this play examined "the complex and often heart-wrenching relationship between father and son, as Churchill boldly examines the personal cost of powerful new technology;" however, I found it presented a more troubling and more controversial issue: that of nature versus nurture. What happens when you have genetically identical children raised apart in completely different home environments? Can you blame a parent for the criminal proclivities of a child? Are some parents so unfit to rear children that the children should be placed at birth with different, "better" parents?

There are many aspects of the play I would love to discuss, but I can't mention them here, because it would give away too much of the surprising plot twists of this engaging play.

Two actors comprised the entire cast of the show, with Tom Story as the early 20-something young man and Ted van Griethuysen as his father. They were both excellent. The only thing I didn't like was the director's decision to have the two actors speak with faux-British accents. Now, Churchill is an English playwright, and she used a couple of English expressions in the script, but I think I would have made the decision to Americanize those limited expressions (for example, saying "in the hospital" instead of "in hospital") and then the actors wouldn't have had to struggle with their mixed English accents. I'm sure the vast majority of the audience didn't notice, but one of my hobbies when I was up at Oxford was trying to learn the various British regional accents and dialects. So, I notice.

Studio Theater has two theaters inside. We were in the Mead Theater, which is an intimate space seating about 200 with a thrust stage, meaning there are seats on three sides of the performance space. The design of this production also meant there was no "curtain," and the set was in full view of the audience at all times. The main stage had a series of vertical screens which later would be used to project pictures of actor Story. The thrust was covered with a large square of shabby, grey, shag carpeting. A large, contemporary, Mies van der Rohe-inspired, Barcelona armchair with well-worn black leather upholstery sat in the middle of the carpet with a big glass ashtray on the floor to the side. Just prior to the audience being let in, actor van Griethuysen, looking disheveled and unkempt in a rumpled, cheap, blue chalkstripe suit and open-collared wrinkled shirt, took his place in the chair, facing upstage, and began smoking cigarettes. Story would appear in blue jeans and a white t-shirt.

This performance was also the debut of my volunteer ushering for the Studio Theater. It was a lot of fun.

I signed up to usher, thinking this would be a good way to meet new people, but I was a little disappointed that most all of the volunteers were women. My hopes rose a bit when the one other man walked into the lobby—a cute, trim, 30-something guy with curly dark hair, a European-cut suit, and a $200 custom shirt from Hong Kong who works for the World Bank—but then he went straight up to one of the female volunteers, his girlfriend. Alas. Then I noticed his shabby shoes and I knew for sure he'd be paying more attention to her than me. Anyway, they had twelve volunteers, one who ran the coat check, one who sold drinks at the concession stand, two who took tickets, one who was a "greeter" in the lobby, four who passed out programs and helped patrons find their seats, and three extras they decided they didn't need, so they sent those three volunteers to go watch the other play in the house, Hilda. Once all the patrons were seated, we got seats on the left side of the thrust on row A. Easy work for a free ticket to professional theater.

One of the nice things about sitting right up front at plays and other performances (I love being on the first or second row) is you get to see the true expression and emotion on the faces of the actors. You can see the sweat dripping off the tips of their noses. And, you can tell if they are truly "feeling" the emotions they are portraying, or if they are just doing stage business. Thus, that is why I like the seats up front, even though sometimes one can't see the big picture of the entire stage. One of the other interesting things about sitting there for this production was watching the sprays of saliva spewing from the actors' mouths as they worked to enunciate all of their words clearly and sharply—truly spitting out their lines.

A Number only runs through this Sunday, so if you like theater and drama, I'd urge you to hurry to the Studio Theater and see this production.