This play by Caryl
Churchill was a brief (55 minutes) exercise to stimulate one’s thinking on cloning.
The audience was divided into (I think, four) groups who could not see each
other. Each group was ushered in to a space fronted by what appeared to be a
mirror, so we sat uncomfortably looking at ourselves until the play started.
Then the mirror revealed its one-way quality. The two actors were an
actual father and son (John and Lex
Shrapnel) and their dialogue centred on the son’s grievances at finding he was
a clone for another son – and that the cloning laboratory had made several duplicates
of him.
So we were presented
with a series of points to ponder:
- Is a clone of a lost person, much the same to those who love him/her as the original?
- How would you feel if you were a replacement for an original?
- How would you feel if you weren’t the ‘real’ replacement but an illicit extra?
Then, with a bit more
thought the list extends:
- Forget cloning, to what extent do we replace lost others with people who will ‘do’ in their place? For example we replace one lost lover with another – maybe quite similar. Lovers are sometimes replacements for parents.
- The children we care for are but the ones we conceive. Would we care equally for all the potentially conceived? So, do we care for the person as an individual or for them as a role?
Given the brevity of
the play, it could have the option of some sort of audience discussion at the end - in the manner of World Factory. But, it was, of course, a play rather than a seminar.
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