A Number: solid acting, weak story at New Rep

The story line (I hate to call it a plot) of A Number is thus: father loses his wife to suicide, tries to raise infant son alone but fails miserably, at least in part due to alcohol and drug use. Son shipped off somewhere unspecified but to try again, father has him cloned and apparently does a better job the second time. Unknown to him, multiple clones are made ?why? The cloned son discovers this and is very upset. The original son appears, angry and bitter. One of the other clones shows up at the end. The dialog never really hangs together, and too many lose ends are left to make this plausible. The theme is supposedly “nature versus nurture,” but we never really know enough about the second son to know how much he differed from the first. The set is spare and modernistic, and neither adds to or detracts from the play. The acting is excellent. Nael Nacier uses simple changes of costume and accent to pull off being the three different clones. Dale Place over acts at times but is an effective father who has made many wrong choices. The play is mercifully short at just about one hour. As a Black Box, little theatre, presentation, one’s expectations would have been lower, but as a Main Stage piece, this is simply not worth your time.