A NUMBER: 2008

Monday, March 10, 2008

ABOUT

THE PLAY
In dialogues, like a confessional, or intimate interrogations, Salter, and middle-aged man is faced with three of a unknown number of genetically identical sons.
The oldest son, Bernard (B1) was abused, ruined and rejected at an early childhood because of his mother’s suicide and an alcoholic Salter’s absence, desperation and violence.
The second Bernard (B2) was later cloned from genetic material of the initial & rejected Bernard when Salter decided to pull himself together, and start all over again. Then there are an unknown number of additional clones made by the scientists that helped Salter clone Bernard.
When the play starts, B2 has learned the truth about his origin, that he is a clone, and turns to his father in a state of total existential turmoil, disappointment and fear.
In the second and fourth act, the first Bernard comes to his father with anger, and ends up hunting B2 down to kill him.
In the last act, Salter has lost both his sons. Bernard has killed his clone and he has killed himself. Or has he killed himself twice? “If you meet yourself, you have to die” Salter has tracked down one of the other clones, Michael Black. Michael black does not live up to Salter’s expectations, neither is he interested in his biological father.

REFLECTED IN THE DESIGN
The play is set around Salter. He appears in all the scenes, and slowly transforms trough meetings and confrontations with the three versions of his son. We see the direct effect his actions and choices in life have had on his them. Salter’s failures, lies, prides and illusions are exposed and picked apart, one by one by his two sons. When all his life lies are divulged and he is totally exposed, the first son murders himself and the other. Salter turns to an unknown son, but is rejected. In the end he is nobody, because he has nobody left in his life.

He started out as a total failure in life, and ruined the lives of the two depending on him. His wife committed suicide, and a seriously traumatized 5-year-old Bernard was placed in foster care. Salter made a major decision. He would turn his destiny totally starting from sketch again. , He made himself into the “ideal Salter”, a respectful, caring, responsible single father for a cloned version of his first son.

The set is Salter, or his surface, as an ideal. A smooth, elegant, controlled man that loves his son. It is his habitat & the exhibition of his character to the outside world. It has the appearance of a diorama. The space looks like an exclusive office space, but there are no signs of any actual work being done there. There is only a sofa, a side table, a blinded window, a picture of a boy and a bonsai tree. The walls are of dark, seemingly expensive wood and the floor grand black stone tiles. It doesn’t reveal much, but it gives an impression of importance and control. It is his comfort zone.
The sons brake into this comfort zone, physically through the wall panels, and pick this façade apart, word, by word, question, by question, confession by confession. The lights expose the fakeness and cheapness of the room. The wood and stone is imitated, and far out of scale, making Salter an even smaller man.

In the last act at the museum of Natural History he meets one of the clones. They stand in front of a diorama with no animal. They are in a public space, reflecting on the evolution of life, looking at an exhibition lacking something essential. Salter, and the audience’s faces are reflected in the glass of the diorama. Salter is faced with the final result of his own life.
Salter is homeless in the sense that his illusions of witch he has based his life, are all broken. Both his social sons are dead. He has no relations, nothing, not even an identity anymore.
He is basically no one.

The space for act 1 -4. The two first sons comes to their father.
is Salters "habitat" ,a cold, representative, masculine out of scale no-space,
partly office,
masculine zen minimalism in fake skin, wood and stone
-restrained & imitated nature
partly diorama/ exhibition
partly studio
framed in a rounded space with apparently now entrances or exits , and directed towards the audience, like a confessional talk show setting
partly nothing.
Partly lost.
Partly hidden
Totally exposed

Act 5. At the museum of natural history

SCENES/ STORYBOARD

SCENE 1.
Salters "habitat" A no-space, partly office, partly diorama/ exhibition, partly studio, partly nothing. Partly lost.
shot 1. Dim. They are just sitting, side by side in sofa. Staring towards audience
shot 2. Light up. B2 "A number..." No change in posture.
It is dark outside,
the blinders are down.
B2 is sitting in the sofa.
Salter is sitting in the sofa
(What do they do before, when audience is getting seated-I dont know yet)

INTERMISSION
-End of scene 1. B2 dissapears in door/ big closet (right side) barely seen in the dark, closes door
-Bright light starts in closet. B1 comes out, changed. Extreemly bright light outside, blinds still down. B sits down in sofe beside a totally motionless Salter who has unbuttoned his shirt , taken of his shoes and is holding a robe that has been hidden in the sofa. This entire sequence has a strange creepy twilightly quality to it (lighting, maybe some subtile noice etc)The moment B1 sits down, things snap back to realistic, S jumps up and puts on the robe and walks over to the kitchen and starts a waterboiler.

SCENE 2
B1 sits on the sofa (like he has conquered it- apperengly confident, wide legs and arms spreading over the entire sofa this way men like to sit (especially in crowded subways..)
S is fuzzing with tea, then comes back and sit on chair by sofa. He is not looking at B1. B1 is constantly looking, staring, at Salter.

INTERMISSION
Bright light from closet/ door. B1 goes in and closes door. Dark. B2 comes out. S has hidden the robe. Is wearing the same shirt as scene 1, but unbuttoned.

SCENE 3

SCENE 4

INTERMISSION
The light goes out. Noisy musiccollage (like my emotinal responce. Ill find it and make an mp3 to put here) The curtains are drawn aside, and the diorama is pushed foreward (by whom?)
(is salter sitting inside it on a chair? B2? hmm)

SCENE 5
New location. At the museum of natural history. MB is standing with his back to the audience
Salter enters through door in the wall panel (left) (not there yet, but in research)

End
Light on Salter makes reflection in Diorama so he looks like he is inside. Michael b leaves

ChaRACTERS(2)

SALTER
He was fleeing, now he´s searching.
He is alone. He made a monster, then he made a son. He was hiding from nothingness. Now he is exposed, there is nowhere else to hide.

Salter is for me the main character in the sense that this whole story evolves around him, in his habitat mainly. All his sons come to him, except Michael Black, witch Salter himself has to find.
Act 1-4 is therefor placed in his home, his "extended body" witch means the core set is a (more or less subtle, I´m not there yet) metaphor of him, while in act 5, he is for me lost. His home still exists, but his self image, his life lie is totally torn down, and by Michael Black denying him, he is naked, homeless and lost (at least until he finds a new lie to hide in)

Salter is also the core, the tree that all these apples were shaken (or cloned) from, witch means all the other characters consists of a whole lot of his material (biologically, mentally, socially..)
As we see in the text, he was also a pretty rotten, scary tree, an abusive neglecting, alcoholic father for B1 ("..a dark dark power witch is my heart, people pay trainers to get up to this speed..") But he changed for B2, because he wanted to success as a father, and I think B2 has been pretty satisfied with his father up to now, but as the play starts he has just realized that everything he thought he was, was just a facade, like a 2dimentional painted prop tree. For Michael he is merely a shadow, a mold, and not very interesting.

So for me Michael is this "nothing" character. He is something very constructed, an apparently successful and acceptable man with a good job (if he could afford this cloning in his early 20ies) , nice clothes and contolled, tasteful home. But under the surface its total pain, fear and chaos.

BERNARD 1

He was hiding, now he´s hunting
He was tiny, ruined & hiding under the bed. The innocent monster has sharpened its teeth for 35 years. he is not scared anymore.

For me the one who resembles his father most. Succesfull, smooth surface tying up an enormous amount of hatred and pain. Unable to have relationships to other people or animals (dogs)
Goes back to the terrified 4 yearold under the bed when he looses control. A good deal Patric Bateman in American Psycho.

"..and they take this painless scrape this specky little cell of me and kept that and you threw the rest of me away"

"... youre supposed to say sorry, he only had tree stitches. I´m a very restrained person."

Resyme from em responce:
"I am just an ugly scetch for a pathetic mans 2.nd try on fatherhood. I am confronted with the fact that I´m only one of many me´s. My father destroyed everything I could have been and treated me like a cheap toy. I am less than nothin. I am by far the most traic possibility. The copy got the life and love that should have been mine. Neither of us shall exist. My father deserves to suffer. The others are irrelevant."

BERNARD 2
He was surching, now he´s hiding.

Never knew the monster laying under him that was himself until it stood up and stared right into his eyes. Now he knows that he is a number of simular strangers.

Already knows the truth when the play starts. Is giving his father a last chance to admit, and reveal who he really is. Is even fishing for it, but without succes. Now hates his father. Comfused and frightened.

MICHAEL BLACK
He is happy with what he has. He is not going anywhere.
(or so we might like to think)

The most mysterical character. Its easy to think he is one of these easy go lucky guys, that he honestly is satisfied with life, and has no desire to dig after his roots.
I think he is rejecting Salter, taking revenge by not giving him any real glimpses into who he really is on purpose. His story about the people living in tunnels underground, with their dead relatives buried in the walls beside them intrigue me. Its such a bizarre, grotesque contrast to the rest of his text.
Either; history repeats itself. He is just another successfully/happy masked fathermonster or a total fake, a pale unpersonalized clone or a happy healthy guy. I guess thats what I find the most brilliant about Churchills conclution. Somehow whoever I (or any audience) choose to believe Michael Black has turned out to be, tells me more about who I (they) am (are) than who Michael Black is. Thats why I want him to remain as blank as possible. (if thats even possible. I dont think it is)
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