CLOUD NINE
Play written by Caryl Churchill
Directed by Maureen Shae
Presented by Emerson Stage
Venue: Semel Theater, Emerson College
Directed by Maureen Shae
Presented by Emerson Stage
Venue: Semel Theater, Emerson College
“When I came to write the play, I returned to…the parallel between colonial and sexual oppression, which Genet calls ‘the colonial or feminine mentality of interiorized repression’. The first act of Cloud Nine takes place in Victorian Africa, where Clive, the white man, imposes his ideals on his family and the natives. Betty, Clive’s wife, is played by a man because she wants to be what men want her to be, and in the same way, Joshua, the black servant, is played by a white man because he wants to be what whites want him to be. Betty does not value herself as a woman, nor does Joshua value himself as a black. Edward, Clive’s son, is played by a woman for a different reason—partly to do with the stage convention of having boys played by women…and partly with highlighting the way Clive tries to impose traditional male behavior on him. Clive struggles throughout the act to maintain the world he wants to see—a faithful wife, a manly son. Harry’s homosexuality is reviled, Ellen’s is invisible…
The second act is set in London in 1979—this is where I wanted the play to end up, in the changing sexuality of our own time. Betty is middle-aged, Edward and Victoria have grown up. A hundred years have passed, but for the characters only twenty-five years…
If men are finding it hard to keep control in the first act, they are finding it hard to let go in the second: Martin dominates Victoria, despite his declarations of sympathy for feminism, and the bitter end of colonialism is apparent in Lin’s soldier brother, who dies in Northern Ireland. Betty is now played by a woman, as she gradually becomes real to herself. Cathy is played by a man…because the size and presence of a man on stage seemed appropriate to the emotional force of young children…”
--Caryl Churchill
The second act is set in London in 1979—this is where I wanted the play to end up, in the changing sexuality of our own time. Betty is middle-aged, Edward and Victoria have grown up. A hundred years have passed, but for the characters only twenty-five years…
If men are finding it hard to keep control in the first act, they are finding it hard to let go in the second: Martin dominates Victoria, despite his declarations of sympathy for feminism, and the bitter end of colonialism is apparent in Lin’s soldier brother, who dies in Northern Ireland. Betty is now played by a woman, as she gradually becomes real to herself. Cathy is played by a man…because the size and presence of a man on stage seemed appropriate to the emotional force of young children…”
--Caryl Churchill
