Caryl Churchill
This time-shifting comedy by the author of Top Girls created a sensation in its off-Broadway premiere, directed by Tommy Tune. A hilarious and scathing parody of colonialism and the Victorian Empire, particularly in its rigid attitude toward sex, Cloud 9 explodes conventions and challenges its audience with humor and wit.
There is Clive, a British functionary; his wife Betty (played by a man); their daughter Victoria (a rag doll); Clive’s friend Harry, an explorer; Mrs. Saunders, who runs about dressed in a riding habit; Clive’s son Edward, who still plays with dolls (and is played by a woman); and Joshua, an African servant who knows exactly what is really going on. What really is going on is a marvelous sendup and a non-stop round-robin of sexual liaisons. The second act shifts to London in 1980. Though a century has passed, the surviving characters have only aged 25 years. Now played by different actors, the characters have lost their repressed sexual longings, along with the Empire.
Details
Caryl Churchill was born on 3 September 1938 in London and grew up in the Lake District and in Montreal. She was educated at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. Downstairs, her first play written while she was still at university, was first staged in 1958 and won an award at the Sund ...
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