Cloud Nine

Cloud Nine,1978.

Caryl Churchill.

A play  in two acts.

First published in Great Britain, 1979 by Pluto Press Ltd and Joint Stock Theatre Group.

  In the first act appear, in order of preference, Clive, a colonial administrator, married Betty and has two children. Clive is the best example of patriarchal man. Her wife’s name is Betty, a submissive woman in act one, but a decided woman in act two; in act one she only thinks in her husband and her children; in act two Betty has left Clive and lives her own life. Betty is played by a man. Joshua is their black servant, played by a white. Joshua is very rude with Betty.  Clive and Betty’s children are Edward, played by a woman, and Victoria, a dummy. Maud is Betty’s mother. Edward’s governess is Ellen who loves Betty but is forced to married Harry, an explorer friend of Clive.  Mrs. Saunders is a widow who has an affair with Clive. In act two appear new characters like Martin who is Victoria’s husband, Lin who is Victoria’s friend and her lover, who has a daughter, Cathy, played by a man. Finally appears Edward who now is gay with his lover, Gerry.

  Act one takes place in Victorian Africa, where Clive imposes his ideals to his family and the natives. Clive has the world he wants to see, a faithful and submissive wife and a manly son. This is an example of the patriarchal family. Betty only thinks in her family, forgetting herself, while his husband is having an affair with Mrs Saunders. When Harry appears seems to be that he loves Betty but he has a gay relation with the servant Joshua and we can discover in dialogues that he also practiced sex with Edward in a time before the play. In this act Ellen explains her love to Betty and Betty turn her down, Joshua hears the conversation, then he goes to tell it to Clive. Moreover Clive discovers Harry’s gay sexuality and decides that Harry needs to married Ellen.

  The second act is set in London in 1979. Here Betty has left Clive, Victoria is married Martin and Edward is gay. Victoria is married but she does not hide her feminism. Edward has a gay relation whit Gerry but Gerry splits up with him and Edward is going to live with Victoria, who has left her husband, and Lin who now is Victoria’s lover. While these things are occurring, Edward, Lin, Victoria and Martin after have an orgy. The play finish when Clive arrives and when Clive goes Betty is in the stage and the Betty of the first act arrives and they embrace.

  In Cloud Nine Churchill asks how much attitudes have changed between 1879 and 1979. One act is devoted to imperial Africa and the other to modern London. A hundred years have passed but for the character only twenty-five years. Churchill pretends to give us a vision to the change of sexuality in a century. This is an aspect very important of this play; Churchill uses two different centuries to explain the change of thoughts in different epochs, the change of a woman’s life.

  Another aspect to comment is the feminism and the racism exposes by Churchill. Churchill critiques the sexist behaviour of Clive in the first act and in the second triumphs the feminism, where Betty has left Clive. In the way that this is represented in the play, in the first act Betty is played by a man and when she acts like a woman, in the second act, she is played by a woman. Racism is represented like the feminism; Joshua is played by a white man because he wants to be what whites want him to be.

  In my point of view, Cloud Nine is a great play that shows us two different epochs, two different behaviours, two different thoughts. I recommend this play to all people and especially to the sexist people.