Chicago Tribune
- Somewhat Recommended
"...B.J. Jones' production -- solid rather than immediately firing on all cylinders -- features a terrific performance from Judd, a top-tier Chicago actor who's been working a lot in New York. Judd has an intuitive, honest, everyman quality that's key to this work's impact...Nonetheless, this also is supposed to be a highly emotional piece, and that needed more attention in a slick production that should slow down and feel a little more."
Chicago Sun Times
- Highly Recommended
"...Both actors, under the steely, precisionist direction of BJ Jones (moonlighting from his job as artistic director at Northlight Theatre), are superb. So is the striking lighting design (by Diane D. Fairchild), off-kilter set (by Brian Sidney Bembridge) and ominous sound (by Joshua Horvath)."
Pioneer Press
- Recommended
"...It's a short, sharp shock. A Number, the new play by British playwright Caryl Churchill, is just shy of an hour long, but it's not a slight work. Like the previous Churchill play staged at Evanston's Next Theatre, "Far Away," this one is concise, packing a lot of ideas and emotions into less time than most playwrights spend on their first acts."
Chicago Reader
- Highly Recommended
"...Spare in language and rich in ideas, Caryl Churchill's 2002 one-act marks her continuing evolution from sprawling examinations of sexual and class politics like Top Girls and Cloud Nine to less overtly political but absolutely chilling portraits of the tangled impulses underlying relationships. Human cloning is the engine driving the play's plot, but Churchill's double- and triple-edged script covers parental neglect, urban paranoia, and the entirely human but inevitably monstrous desire to erase the past."
Windy City Times
- Somewhat Recommended
"...I still can’t regard A Number as a complete work, but the current Next Theatre production convinces me that it’s theatrically viable, thanks to director BJ Jones and a pungent performance by John Judd."
Time Out Chicago
- Highly Recommended
"...Churchill’s worldview hasn’t been too clouded by that conflict to write A Number, which now makes its Chicago debut. Directed by B.J. Jones at Evanston’s Next Theatre (which in the past few seasons has put together the most daring programming lineup in the city), it’s an ice-water jolt of a production, leaving a chill that won’t be going away with the spring thaw."
ChicagoCritic
- Highly Recommended
"...Jay Whittaker and John Judd gave powerful performances that deftly define the complications of cloning from a society, family and individual perspective. This is tremendous theatre containing intelligent ideas delivered with extraordinary skill, tightly directed and paced by BJ Jones to exploit all of Churchill’s chilling themes."
Chicago Stage and Screen
- Not Recommended
"...Churchill's writing is minimalist to the extreme; in fact the entire performance lasts under an hour. Judd's dialogue is particularly embarrassing for an actor who has played everything from Eugene O'Neill to Laurence Olivier. As father and son engage in an ambiguous conversation, the father's stumbling replies are a series of "yes" and "no." One would have expected better from this prolific author."
