Day 98: Cloud Nine, by Caryl Churchill

I had some reservations about picking up any Caryl Churchill, as I have less than happy memories of working with one or two of her scripts when I was at school. While those specific expectations didn't apply to this play, I can't say I found myself "splitting my sides laughing" as the blurb promised. Maybe it's just another case of missing the humour and "sexual politics" but all I really saw was a group of people with a variety of sexual identity issues, some of which change through the course of the play, including a blatant case of child molestation that is mentioned once, referenced again later and nobody ever does anything about it. My feelings on that last point might have been influenced by how strikingly different it is to Mouths of Mothers which I read and reviewed in an earlier post. Of course, there's only so much that can be understood from reading rather than seeing it performed, but my first impression is of everyone involved being incredibly flakey about issues that should be given more care and attention - it's a rare opportunity to cover race, gay/bisexuality, polyamoury, gender dysphoria AND child abuse all in one play, and it feels like a roll call and a missed opportunity to really discuss how those issues affect people. Nobody really seems to have a solid bar set as to how much exploration on the part of their partner they are willing to tolerate, or even a clear idea of what they want for themselves (with one or two exceptions). Once again I have a play where I have to admit, I don't get it.

That all said, the genderbending for certain roles is interesting, and I might come back to this if I find a performance or film to watch. I would need to see it performed to make a judgement one way or the other on the direction that the black slave/servant is to be played by a white man - it makes sense for the script, to a point, but the reason for it "in character" is just as uncomfortable ("you'd never know he was black") as if it were a casting decision not dictated by the script. I realise I'm struggling to phrase that in writing.