Cloud 9 (play)

Cloud Nine
Revised American edition, Methuen, 1984
Written by	Caryl Churchill
Date premiered	February 14, 1979 (1979-02-14)
Place premiered	Dartington College of Arts, Totnes, Devon
Original language
Subject	Colonialism, gender
Setting	Act 1: A British colony in Victorian Africa Act 2: London in 1979

Cloud Nine is a two-act play written by British playwright Caryl Churchill after workshops with the Joint Stock Theatre Company in late 1978 and first performed at Dartington College of Arts, London, on February 14, 1979.

The two acts of the play form a contrapuntal structure. Act 1 is set in British colonial Africa in Victorian times, and Act 2 is set in a London park in 1979. However, between the acts only twenty-five years pass for the characters. Each actor plays one role in Act 1 and a different role in Act 2 - the characters who appear in both acts are played by different actors in the first and second. Act 1 parodies the conventional comedy genre and satirizes Victorian society and colonialism. Act 2 shows what could happen when the restrictions of both the genre of comedy and Victorian ideology are loosened in the more permissive 1970s.

The play uses controversial portrayals of sexuality and obscene language and establishes a parallel between colonial and sexual oppression. Its humour depends on incongruity and the carnivalesque, and helps to convey Churchill's political message about accepting people who are different and not dominating them or forcing them into particular social roles.

Characters

Act 1

• Clive, a colonial administrator (Clive epitomizes the oppressive nature of patriarchal British colonialism)
• Betty, his wife, played by a man (Betty reflects the ideal woman according to Victorian beliefs)
• Joshua, his black servant, played by a white (Joshua wants to be what the Whites would like him to be)
• Edward, his son, played by a woman (Edward is a boy who is effeminate, but that is not allowed in the era)
• Victoria, his daughter, a dummy (Victoria represents the way that Victorian society wanted girls to be quiet and submissive)
• Maud, his mother-in-law (Maud represents a powerful female who fights to maintain life as it is now without change or progression, while out-of-place herself because of her inability to conform to typical femininity)
• Ellen, Edward's governess (Ellen is a lesbian in love with Betty, who does not realize that Ellen loves her)
• Harry Bagley, an explorer (Harry is homosexual, having sex with both Edward and Joshua, but professing admiration for Betty)
• Mrs. Saunders, a widow (Mrs. Saunders is a neighbour who relies on Clive to protect her from the rebellious natives; she and Clive have an affair)

Act 2

• Betty, (now played by a woman; during Act 2 Betty gradually comes to terms with her own identity and sexuality, and leaves Clive)
• Edward, her son (now played by a man; Edward has come out as a homosexual, and he wants to be married to Gerry)
• Victoria, her daughter (Victoria is married to Martin but has an affair with Lin)
• Martin, Victoria's husband (almost as dominating while being a "sensitive man" as Clive was)
• Lin (a lesbian single mother having an affair with Victoria)
• Cathy, Lin's daughter age 5, played by a man (Cathy is quite violent and enjoys playing with guns, but refuses to wear anything but dresses)
• Gerry, Edward's lover (who leaves him during Act 2)

Synopsis

Act I

Clive, a British colonial administrator, lives with his family, a governess and servant during turbulent times in Africa. The natives are rioting and Mrs Saunders, a widow, comes to them to seek safety. Her arrival is soon followed by Harry Bagley, an explorer. Clive makes passionate advances to Mrs Saunders, his wife Betty fancies Harry, who has sex with the servant Joshua and Clive's son Edward. The governess Ellen, who reveals herself to be a lesbian, is forced into marriage with Harry. Act 1 ends with the wedding celebrations; the final scene is Clive giving a speech while Joshua is pointing a gun at him.

Act II

Although Act 2 is set in 1979, some of the characters of Act 1 are reappearing – for them only 25 years have passed. Betty has left Clive, her daughter Victoria is now married to Martin, and Edward has an openly gay relationship with Gerry. Victoria leaves Martin and starts a lesbian relationship with Lin. When Gerry leaves Edward, Edward moves in with his sister and Lin. The three of them have a drunken ceremony in which they call up the Goddess, and after that characters from Act 1 begin appearing in Act 2. Act 2 has a looser structure than Act 1, and Churchill played around with the ordering of the scenes.

Interpretations and observations

Act I

Act 1 of Cloud Nine invites the audience to engage with Britain’s colonial past, but does so by challenging 'the preconceived notions held by the audience in terms of gender and sexuality'. Churchill deliberately subverts gender and racial stereotypes, using cross-gender and cross-racial casting: Betty is played by a man in act 1, but by a woman in act 2, Joshua is played by a white and Edward is played by a woman in act 1 and by a man in act 2. Churchill deliberately uses the notion of cross gender, racial and age casting to unsettle the expectations of her audience. In the introduction of the play, Churchill explains why for example Betty is played by a man in the first act: "she wants to be what men want her to be ... Betty does not value herself as a woman." Michael Patterson confirms this when he writes that "Betty is played by a man in order to show how femininity is an artificial and imposed construct". James Harding suggests that by cross-casting Betty and Edward in Act 1, Churchill is actually playing it safe: making what are same-sex relationships into ones that are visibly heterosexual and normative.

The black servant, Joshua, is played by a white man for similar reasons. He says, "My skin is black, but o, my soul is white. I hate my tribe. My master is my light"; Amelia Howe Kritzer argues that he is played by a white man because "the reversal exposes the rupture in Joshua’s identity caused by his internalization of colonial values". Joshua does not identify with his "own" people; in act 1, scene three Mrs. Saunders asks if he doesn't mind beating his own people. Joshua replies that they are not his people, and refers to them as being bad.

Act II

The second act is set in London 1979, but for the characters only twenty-five years have passed. Churchill explains her reason for this in the introduction: "The first act, like the society it shows, is male dominated and firmly structured. In the second act, more energy comes from the women and the gays." In Act 2, the British colonial oppression is also present, this time in the form of the post-colonial presence in Northern Ireland. Although the different societies in the two acts are quite different, they share the notion of colonial oppression. Michael Patterson writes that "the actors ... established a 'parallel between colonial and sexual oppression,' showing how the British occupation of Africa in the nineteenth century and its post-colonial presence in Northern Ireland relate to the patriarchal values of society" Churchill shows the audience different views of oppression, both colonial and sexual. She amplifies social constructs by linking the two periods, using an unnatural time gap. Amelia Howe Kritzer argues that "Churchill remained close to the Brechtian spirit of encouraging the audience to actively criticize institutions and ideologies they have previously taken for granted".

There is a lot of difference between the two acts: Act 2 contains a lot more sexual freedom for women whereas in Act 1 the men dictate the relationships. Act 2 "focuses on changes in the structure of power and authority, as they affect sex and relationships" a male-dominated structure defined in the first act. Churchill writes that she "explored Genet’s idea that colonial oppression and sexual oppression are similar." She essentially uses the play as a social arena to explore "the Victorian origins of contemporary gender definitions and sexual attitudes, recent changes ... and some implications of these changes."

Cloud Nine turned 30 in 2009 and to celebrate this Fandango Theatre are staging it during September at The Union Theatre in London. [1]

External links

• ​Cloud 9​ at the Internet Off-Broadway Database