KEY POINTS:
Local theatre company A Lethal Set continues its mission to deliver passionate and innovative drama with its latest production about human cloning.
A Number, written by British playwright Caryl Churchill, is a one-hour piece starring David Aston and newcomer Daniel Coppersmith as a father and his three sons.
But forget about the candy-coated world of, say, American sitcom My Three Sons, where the biggest issue a widowed father faced was whether to let a son who slacked at school go to the prom.
In A Number, Salter (Aston) deals with profound questions - like why did he allow his son to be cloned and what has happened to his wife?
Churchill, the first woman to serve as the Royal Court Theatre's resident dramatist, has built a reputation for experimenting with theatrical forms and ideas in order to explore - and bring new twists to - contemporary moral issues.
She used the familiar theme - the sins of the father being visited on the sons - to examine what could become one of the most pressing moral issues of the 21st century: human cloning.
When A Number first played in London, starring James Bond's Daniel Craig as the three sons and Michael Gambon as the father, the Guardian newspaper described it as a magnificent new play with "more drama and ideas than most writers manage in a dozen full-length works".
A production staged at Wellington's Circa Theatre last year garnered reviews in a similar vein, with one critic saying it would leave audiences thinking "furiously" about the nature of identity, parenting, sibling rivalry, nature vs nurture and memory.
These are exactly the types of reactions the team working on A Lethal Set's production want.
Director Cameron Rhodes has chosen to stage A Number as it was originally - with no set and limited costume changes.
"I think it is the type of play which stands up on its own so you don't need those devices.
"It's a play that means something and one which is very much about the acting."
Rhodes acknowledges it is a demanding challenge for Daniel Coppersmith, who graduated from drama school last year. Coppersmith plays three of Salter's sons, the angst-ridden Bernard 1, the aggressive and demanding Bernard 2, and the seemingly insipid Michael.
"Each brother has his own way of interacting with the father.
"They have different views and different ways of speaking which are all made apparent in the script so a lot of the work has been done for me," says Coppersmith.
A friend of David Aston's son, Coppersmith has appeared in several co-op theatre style productions since his graduation.
Knowing that actors make their own opportunities, he contacted Aston earlier in the year to ask whether he knew of any projects they could work on.
Aston, already familiar with Churchill's work, thought immediately of A Number.
"Daniel and I are the right ages to play father and son(s) and the opportunity was there."
He says despite the succinct story, A Number packs a mighty punch right from the beginning as audiences are propelled from one scene to another.
"The best theatre is when you are watching something and you are those people in front of you. This is one of those pieces.
"It is not an abstract story but a very human, emotional and ethical one."
Where: Musgrove Studio, Maidment Theatre, Sep 20-Oct 6
