Pure acting

Four mesmerising performances bring works alive

- Michael Billington

WE go to the theatre for many reasons, but one of them is to see fine acting. In a diverse month, I caught a number of performances that reminded me of what a famous theatre critic, C. E. Montague, once said were the key elements of great acting: ‘A plastic physical medium, a finished technical cunning and a passion of joy in the thought of the character acted.’

Although he is still too young to be called a great actor, I found all those qualities in the performance of Paapa Essiedu in Caryl Churchill’s A Number at the Old Vic. Mr Essiedu—already an admired Hamlet for the RSC— plays three sons, two of whom have been cloned from the first, of a guilt-ridden father. As the abused original son, Mr Essiedu is clenched, menacing and coiled like a dangerous snake. As the second son, a physical replica, but temperamental opposite, he is dishevelled, kindly and fearful. Finally, as one of countless clones, he adopts an American accent and exudes a relaxed sunniness. What is exciting is to see Mr Essiedu, with the aid of swift costume-changes, capturing three wildly different personae who all stem from the same genetic base.

The play itself, first seen 20 years ago with Michael Gambon and Daniel Craig and much revived since, raises any number of issues in a little over an hour. It clearly asks whether we are formed by nature or nurture and what the source is of that mysterious thing called ‘personality’. But it is also about parents and children and, more specifically, fathers and sons. Lennie James may be less spectacular than Mr Essiedu, but he skilfully captures the father’s culpability and contradictions. As he tells his second son: ‘I did some bad things. I deserve to suffer. I did some better things. I’d like recognition.’