Playing God: Victoria production looks at cloning and the ultimate deepfake

Caryl Churchill may not have known about deepfakes or artificial intelligence when she wrote A Number, but her 2002 play feels eerily prophetic today. Not only does it probe the ethics of human cloning, it digs into greed, guilt, and the cost of trying to play God. In Dandelion Theatre’s new Victoria production, actor and producer Eric Grace brings Churchill’s spare, unsettling script to life at Paul Phillips Hall, where a father and his cloned sons wrestle with questions of identity, responsibility, and what it means to be truly human. “It’s sort of partly surreal, partly black comedy, partly tragic,” says Grace. “It’s full of ideas – what makes you unique, what happens when that’s taken away, and how far science can go before it starts rewriting who we are.” The story unfolds through five short scenes between a father and his sons – all genetically identical, yet shaped by very different lives. When a 35-year-old man discovers he’s one of an unknown number of clones, he confronts his father, demanding answers and ratcheting up the tension. What follows is a series of brutal, revealing encounters that strip away layers of deception and regret. One son was given up for adoption, another was created as a “second chance,” and a third appears – calm and self-contained – his only connection to them, his DNA. As each meeting shifts in tone, Churchill exposes human greed, the cost of tampering with nature, and the haunting impossibility of redemption. James Johnson plays all three versions of the son – the original and his two clones – shifting seamlessly between innocence, rage, and eerie composure. “It’s a real acting challenge,” Grace says. “James has to become three completely different people, even though they share the same face.” A towering figure in contemporary theatre, Churchill is celebrated for works such as Top Girls and Cloud 9, which broke ground for their feminist politics and structural daring. Her writing in A Number is famously fractured – sentences trail off, overlap, and collide – forcing actors to inhabit the halting rhythm of real thought. The result, in Grace’s words, is “hard but rewarding,” demanding absolute focus from performers and audience alike. At just under an hour, the play’s compression makes every pause and silence count. Grace sees the play’s science-fiction premise as strikingly relevant in an era of AI and digital replication. “It’s really the ultimate deepfake,” he says. “We’re already living in a time when you can copy a person’s face, their voice, their movements – and the laws haven’t caught up.” “There’ll be some laughs, some shocks, and, I hope, plenty of conversation afterward,” Grace adds. “You come away asking, if I saw someone identical to me on the street, would I be fascinated, or terrified?” Dandelion Theatre presents A Number by Caryl Churchill, Nov. 7-16 at Paul Phillips Hall, 1923 Fernwood Rd., Victoria. Tickets and information: dandeliontheatre.ca.