Cloud Nine

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Study in Alienation
Review: As far as Brechtian plays go, Churchill is a master at alienation and disidentification- characters in this play are played as the protagonist's projection of who he thinks they should be (ie: the westernized African servant is played by a white actor). Although the effect is extremely powerful onstage, particularly when it raises up complex social and ethnic issues, the different characters can be hard to keep straight on paper. This play works far better in performance than it does in print, but it remains a valuable teaching tool for both Brecht and World Theatre studies.

Rating:
Summary: Bridge Builder
Review: Caryl Churchill's dark comedic play, "Cloud Nine" is a masterpiece. Though written in 1978, its commentary on gender roles and sexuality is quite compelling to our youngest generations. With the current controversey over homosexual relationships/marriage, Cloud Nine serves as window into the frustrations and fears of gay characters. People who have a hard time identifying with alternative lifestyles would have a lot to learn from reading through this play. In a way, Churchill's play is a bridge builder between the heterosexual world and the gay minority.

Cloud Nine follows the story of a family. The first act takes place on a South African plantation during the English Victorian Era, while in the second act, though the characters have only aged 20 years, the action takes place in London, England in the 1970's. Clive, the family patron, is the center of a male-oriented soceity and incourages traditional family and gender roles. For the first act, his wife Betty is played by a man, his gay son Edward is played by a woman, and his black servant is played by a white man. Immediately we learn that only Clive is satisfied with his station in life, where the other characters suffer many indignities to themselves that go unnoticed by everyone else (i.e. Edward is being molested by a friend of his father, who eventually attempts to seduce Clive as well). By the second act, time has moved forward and we watch the characters trying to adapt to an ever changing world in which parts of them is too withdrawn.

Chruchill's play is clever and intense with emotion. To connect with one character is to really experience the mental frustration and the indignities that we suffer from a judgemental society. I praise Caryl Churchill for this commentary in hopes that readers will gain a sense of sympathy for such people and in turn will promote tolerance.

Rating:
Summary: Bridge Builder
Review: Caryl Churchill's dark comedic play, "Cloud Nine" is a masterpiece. Though written in 1978, its commentary on gender roles and sexuality is quite compelling to our youngest generations. With the current controversey over homosexual relationships/marriage, Cloud Nine serves as window into the frustrations and fears of gay characters. People who have a hard time identifying with alternative lifestyles would have a lot to learn from reading through this play. In a way, Churchill's play is a bridge builder between the heterosexual world and the gay minority.

Cloud Nine follows the story of a family. The first act takes place on a South African plantation during the English Victorian Era, while in the second act, though the characters have only aged 20 years, the action takes place in London, England in the 1970's. Clive, the family patron, is the center of a male-oriented soceity and incourages traditional family and gender roles. For the first act, his wife Betty is played by a man, his gay son Edward is played by a woman, and his black servant is played by a white man. Immediately we learn that only Clive is satisfied with his station in life, where the other characters suffer many indignities to themselves that go unnoticed by everyone else (i.e. Edward is being molested by a friend of his father, who eventually attempts to seduce Clive as well). By the second act, time has moved forward and we watch the characters trying to adapt to an ever changing world in which parts of them is too withdrawn.

Chruchill's play is clever and intense with emotion. To connect with one character is to really experience the mental frustration and the indignities that we suffer from a judgemental society. I praise Caryl Churchill for this commentary in hopes that readers will gain a sense of sympathy for such people and in turn will promote tolerance.

Rating:
Summary: Personal Epiphanies
Review: Cloud Nine is an amazing play, a break-through drama in its time. Churchill plays fast and loose with the decades in her deconstruction of the glacial change of gender typing from Victorian times until the late '70's. She blends cartooned and naturalistic characterization to demonstrate the impact of character types on our deepest ideas of self. This play is funny, revelatory, and terribly moving.

Rating:
Summary: Can a book with an orgy be that bad?
Review: I have just finished reading Caryl Churchill's infamous play "Cloud Nine". I found the book to be an amazing tool to present to the reader those social issues which we have so desperately tried to sweep under the bed. The book is actually a play through which her use of a Brechtian style of theater keeps the reader in a sort of shocked confusion and not very comfortable. At first glance you might say it is vulgar and rude, yet a deeper evaluation proves that this play is an effective tool to dredge up what society has sunk to the bottom of the river.

Rating:
Summary: For those into theatrical arts
Review: This play is an interesting approach to the question of morality in the 'modern' age. It contrasts two worlds, one of moral certainty in a Victorian colonial home, and one of complete amorality and uncertainty in contemporary Britain. It does however go beyond these issues to deal with other important issues like Gender roles and the general issue of both mental and physical 'colonization' of people by society. This play should be read by anyone even remotely interested in these themes.