A Number   ACT Theatre closes Oct. 1
Seattleplays.com review By Tom Scanlon
	Most good actors have no trouble being interesting, while speaking. But to be riveting, while listening – that’s an entirely different trick. Well, not so much a trick as a skill, and Kevin Tighe is so good that, while Peter Crook has far more of the weighty lines in A Number, the real joy is in watching Tighe listen.     His reactions range from hopeful to fearful to frustrated to ship-wrecked in this jewel of a one-act play by Caryl Churchill.  Using an almost-barren stage – just three chairs -- director John Kazanjian delivers a smart, witty, fast production; almost breezy, despite some dark subject matter.     At just under an hour, A Number feels a bit unfinished, a little “. . . and then?” Crook is so good at distinctive characterizations, it would have been fun to see him play any number of clones, rather than “just” two --plus the original.      Tighe plays the father, and it’s hard to imagine an actor giving a better performance in this (admittedly limited) role. He is so human in his performance, it’s really quite heart-breaking.       Though certainly not herself a theatric clone, Churchill’s dialogue is deeply rooted in the Beckett/Pinter school of elliptical, truncated speech. She is quite good at ambiguity, playing it for both comic and sinister effect.        As the play comes in under an hour, a curtain-raiser might have been nice, to flesh out the evening.