Analysis of Caryl Churchill's Cloud Nine

The play Cloud Nine, by Caryl Churchill, presents two very different time periods in Britain each taking place in separate acts of the play. In Act I the ideas of the British Victorian era are prevalent through displays of "deviant" sexual behavior between the characters. This is juxtaposed with Act II taking place in 1979 London during a time of sexual revolution and women's liberation. Both acts work together to present a picture of Britain/the British that the reader can view as group of people who are desperately trying to break away from old stereotypes that plague the country and develop a new identity much like the characters do in Churchill's play. The play deals with issues such as gender identity, post-colonialism, and a critiquing of the government, which ultimately work together to present the views of the "left" in Britain during a period of conservative rule in Britain.

Cloud Nine was written in 1979 while Churchill was part of the Joint Stock Company. In this group of playwrights each member would brainstorm together before venturing off to write a play on their own. The company members would act out scenes through the tool of improvisation and this would spark creativity in the minds of the playwrights. It was through this group and this process that Churchill would get the idea to write Cloud Nine, which was to be her second play with the group.
The play itself can be classified as a member of the Brechtian drama family. Through the use of gender-bending (each character is played by a member of the opposite sex in Act I) the play achieves one of the main epic-theatre goals; Verfremdungseffekt. Verfremdungseffekt is described as "The use of techniques that remind the spectator that the play is a representation of reality and not reality itself" (Wikipedia) which helps to distance the audience from the play and sever their ability to believe that the reality of the play is in fact their true reality. This theme of estrangement is carried in to the second act of the play where sexual relationships and identities are pushed even further than in Act I with the introduction of orgies and "out of the closet" homosexual relationships in to the text.

The play itself is extremely political and according to David Richard Jones who "…divides political theatre into two strategies, which are really the dominant styles of the last century: "reflectionist"…and "interventionist" (otherwise Brechtian or modernist)." (Jones 144) explains how the use of the text as a tool of "intervention" reinforces the idea that the play helps audience to discover their true reality. A reality which, at the point when the play is occurring, is one in which country is struggling to find its own identity (to resurface from the post-war image) much like the characters in Act II are trying to find their sexual identity.

In Act I the reader is introduced to a family of British citizens who are currently residing in Africa during the period of English Colonialism. The family, which consists of Clive, his wife Betty, and their two children Edward and Victoria, is depicted as a white upper-middle class family. Clive epitomizes Victorian ideals such as sexual repression and colonization and civilization of the "other" in places such as Africa. His character is unable to change and is left behind in Act II, not appearing at all. Betty, on the other hand, displays a need to change her current ways in Act I through her affair with Henry. She is unhappy in her marriage and becomes unfaithful, eventually divorcing Clive in Act II.

Along with the family members the reader is also introduced to Joshua, an African servant to the family, and Ellen, who is Edward's governess. Joshua, who left his tribe in order to be with Clive, is constantly denouncing his people and talking about them in a manner that a white would talk about the African people. He remains devoted to Clive and the family until the end of the act where his frustration over being dominated reaches its breaking point and he pulls a gun on Clive. Ellen, on the other hand, is dealing with the prospect of having to be alone for the rest of her life due to the fact that she works for Clive and Betty. She is harboring feelings for Betty as well, and during this period homosexuality among women was looked down upon.

Act I is primarily concerned with the Victorian era, and although not given a specific date by Churchill, the reader can assume it occurs between 1840 and 1900. This Act sets up post-war Britain for the reader, and they are able to see what the country was like before their decline. They are shown at the peak of their "game" as the great colonizer, and subsequently the great bully of the world. They are currently occupying Africa in attempts to "civilize" the "beasts" that the tribes are composed of. It is through this context that the reader is supposed to view Joshua, as a brain-washed native who is led to disavow his own people in order to feel as if he can "fit" in with the white British male. The frustration that Joshua incurs during this time period causes him to hold a gun to Clive's head at the end of Act I and threaten to kill him in front of his family.

This scene is extremely representative of the overall sentiments that people in the colonized countries felt after Britain's occupation of them. There were many who were presented with opportunities to participate in a "civilized" British culture through servitude or through offers of education. The people who participated in this process were left to feel as if they now had a duel identity, that of a member of their native land, and also that of the privileged "civilized" society. Peter Barry talks about this dual identity in his book Beginning Theory and states;

"This notion of the double, or divided, or fluid identity which is a characteristic of the postcolonial writer explains the great attraction which post-structuralism and deconstruction have proved to be for the postcolonial critic…is centrally concerned to show the fluid and unstable nature of personal and gender identity, the shifting…the way literature itself is a site on which ideological structures are acted out." (Barry 195).

This quote reflects on how the ideological interaction between the colonizer and the colonized plays out in literature, and how literature itself presents a perfect forum to discuss these ideologies and their impact on the colonized.

One of the most interesting facts about Cloud Nine remains to be how the performance of gender can give the play different meanings depending on who is cast to play whom. For example, if the woman who plays Harry Bagley in Act I is cast to play Betty in Act II, then there would be an oedipal reading of the play that could be done due to the fact that the son, Edward, has slept with Henry in Act I. Janet Gardner, of the University of Massachusetts, states that we must "…consider how shifting performance contexts can alter the focus and the message of the play, even for a single viewer." (Gardner 229). This fact must be taken in to account when "reading" the play because it provides for other contexts to be found and deconstructed. The same use of "character placement" can produce a number of different readings such as sister/brother, father/son, and father/daughter. Each different combination is to produce an entirely different tone and message for the entire play and will affect every reading of the play that is done.

While gender identities are deeply embedded in to a society, one must keep in mind that they are entirely constructed by the society that one lives in. In Cloud Nine there is a reoccurring theme of homosexuality present throughout the play, each character of the male sex is sleeping with other male characters in Act I, and in Act II there is a detailed account of the relationship between Victoria and Lin. It is problematic, however, to look at the play in terms of "gender" because "gender" is a construction that has long been classified as a phallocentric or patriarchal behavior to engage in.

I believe that this type of system is what Cloud Nine works to break down by its "production" of gender within the play. Elin Diamond talks about this in her essay "Refusing the Romanticism of Identity: Narrative Interventions in Churchill, Benmussa, Duras" when she states that we must "…advocate an art that "dissolves identity, even sexual identities." While Diamond is specifically talking about Lacanian discourse and the total rejection of the "self," it is still helpful to use this idea in the reading of Cloud Nine. The play, through the identity swapping, not only works to create different contexts, but also to deride the idea of identity in its entirety.

When the characters reenter the stage in Act II and are played by different actors, who are of the same sex, there is a sense that this process was completed with relative ease. It displays to the viewer that identity is a farce, that it is something that can be fluid and deceptive. It presents how one can "play" even when they are presenting themselves as a "true self" to others. This, hopefully, would make the audience question their own thoughts on identity and possible help them come to a conclusion along the lines of Lacanian theory, in which they too would completely reject the idea of a true "self."

This process of recognizing role playing should also ring a bell with the audience of Britain in the 1980s due to the fact that their government was playing the same "false identity game" with their people as is pointed out in the play. Margaret Thatcher, at this time, had privatized all of the major industries in Britain, subsequently making life for the working class worse. While Britain was trying to build itself up in the eyes of the world, it was letting its own people starve. Britain was putting on a show for the rest of the world, creating an identity for itself that was completely contradictive of its actual behavior towards its own people.

Another interesting aspect of the play is that Churchill seemingly adapts older forms of drama in order to convey her own message. In Act II Lin's dead brother appears as a ghost to the rest of the characters. This scene mirrored, for me, when Hamlet's father appeared as a ghost to him in order to tell him who was responsible for his murder. So in this scene, when her brother arrives, the reader expects him to have important news from beyond the grave, something that was so important that he needed to come back to life to convey the message. When he does finally speak he says, "No I've come for a fuck." (Churchill 98) which is not exactly a message of such caliber that it needed to transcend death in order to be delivered.
By using this classic convention of the appearance of a ghost, Churchill is making a statement about the politics of Britain at the time of the play. She is using the figure of an army member to make a commentary on the current invasion of the Falkland Islands. While the country of Britain saw a rise in national moral these were still many who disagreed with the invasion of the Islands.

I believe, that through the use of this military figure Churchill is stating how she finds the military efforts to be a joke to the country of Britain. She depicts Lin's brother as a soldier who does not care at all for his country, merely about the prospect of getting laid. It is apparent through the brother's behavior that he is representative of the sentiments felt by all of the "leftists" in Britain at the time who were displeased with Thatcher's leadership of the country. Lin's brother appears to make a mockery of the efforts to invade the Falkland Islands, and it is a blatant stab at the conservative party's rule.

The play also makes a social commentary about what it means to be a woman in the late 1900's in Britain. In Act I Betty expresses interest in Harry Bagley, seemingly wanting to pursue an affair because she is unhappy in her relationship with her husband Clive. When she is allotted the opportunity to peruse this relationship she backs down because she wants to remain proper. This changes however in Act II, which is 25 years later for the characters, with her divorcing Clive and living on her own. The progress that is charted through Betty's transformation from the submissive female in Act I to the independent working woman in Act II illustrates what was occurring in England during the 1980's.

In the 1980's there was a surge of women in the professional workplace, and with this came the need for women to choose either a life of work or a life of family. In Act I Betty would be comparable to the pre-feminist woman in the respect that she would not initiate a divorce or try and leave her family. This Betty is juxtaposed with Betty in Act II (now played by an actress of the same sex) who is finally discovering who she is as an independent woman. She is finally considered whole by herself and by the audience by the last line of the play where it states "Clive goes. Betty from Act I comes. Betty and Betty embrace." Betty has finally made the transformation from a pre-feminist movement woman to a post-feminist woman and this journey is complete through the symbolism of the hug at the end.

This closing scene is also important because it makes a statement about gender identities as well. When Betty from Act I appears it is the Betty who is played by a man. So the hug between the man playing Betty and the woman playing Betty in Act II is symbolic of the union of the two genders within her. It displays how each of the genders work together to make up Betty's true identity, which is not one that is defined by the limitations of the labeling of "sex" or of the gender roles that are considered inherent to each.

Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar talk about how the two sexes battle one another in their book "College English" and state, "…the sexes battle because sex roles change, but when the sexes battle, sex itself changes." (Gilbert and Gubar 768). This observation can be seen within the character of Betty between the Act I "Betty" and the Act II "Betty" through the transformation that occurs throughout the play. By the end of the play the viewer no longer thinks of Betty as simply a gender or sex, but rather as a being that transcends these labels and has found peace with herself.

Ultimately, Cloud Nine is a product of postwar Britain as much as it is a critique of it. It was written by Churchill when she was 41 years old, also proving that women can hold and maintain an important job in postwar Britain while raising her three sons. Churchill, who began her career writing for radio, was now writing plays that were speaking directly about the political issues that Britain and the rest of the world were facing.

Cloud Nine ultimately brings together many of the major issues that were occurring in the 1980s in Britain. The play depicts what life was like for those living in colonized areas and how their lives subsequently changed after the occupation of Britain in their lands. It also deals with prewar and postwar Britain, giving its critique of what the country is going through on political and social levels. It tracks the development of women from submissive roles to more modern roles such as professional and single mother through the character of Betty.

WORKS CITED

Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory. Manchester University Press. New York, New York. 1995.

Boireau, Nicole. "Drama on Drama: Dimensions of Theatricality on the Contemporary British Stage". Theatre Journal. Vol. 51, No. 2, 1999, 227-228.

Diamond, Elin. "Refusing the Romanticism of Identity: Narrative Interventions in Churchill, Benmussa, Druas". Theatre Journal. Vol. 37, No. 3, Oct. 1985, 273-286.

Churchill, Caryl. Cloud Nine. Pluto Press. London, England. 1983.

Gardner, Janet E. "Thatcher's Theatre: British Theatre and Drama in the Eighties". Theatre Journal. Vol. 52, No. 4, 2000, 585-587.

Gilbert, Sandra M and Susan Gubar. "SexChanges". College English. Vol. 50, No. 7, Nov. 1998, 768-785.

Greenbaum, Vicky. "Seeing through the Lenses of Gender: Beyond Male/Female Polarization". The English Journal. Vol. 88, No. 3, Jan. 1999, 96-99.

Jones, David Richard. "Strategies of Political Theatre: Post-War British Playwrights." Theatre Journal. Vol. 57, No. 1, 2005, 144-145.