Caryl Churchill’s “Cloud 9”: Changing Perspectives of Social Standards and Relationships

Without the thorough analysis of the content of the Caryl Churchill’s “Cloud 9,” the structure of the play may appear fantastic. After all, the time that passes between the first and second act is one hundred years, but all the characters age only about twenty-five years. The author’s intentions become clear when one looks closely at the actual events taking place in the play. The two acts are so different in terms of how they present personal relationships and social norms that they may stand as separate plays if viewed by themselves. This difference is precisely the reason for the temporal separation between the colonial Africa with its strict patriarchal values of the late 19th century in Act I and decadent London of the early 1980s in Act II.

At first glance, having players represent the characters of an opposite gender appears confusing. In fact, however, this prepares the audience for the confusion of perceptions of genders, their relations, and their roles in societies that are presented throughout the play. The time gap between the two acts also disrupts the smooth flow of the narrative, which allows the audience to evaluate carefully what they saw in the first act in order to better understand the second one.

There are so many aspects of social relations that are presented in “Cloud 9,” it may be difficult for an audience to identify all of them. The major ones are the issues of sexual relations and orientations, their acceptance by society in general, family values, gender relations, and ways in which men and women identify themselves in society in terms of gender.

The contrast between the societies presented in the two acts is drastic. In Act I, the colonial society of 1880s Africa is set in its rigid ways. Men are masters of the land, the household, and all the people in it, as represented by Clive in the play. Women know their place, which is at home with children, unconcerned with anything else, with Betty as a good example of it. Betty sees herself as part of Clive rather than an independent human being, and says so herself in the play.

Act II, on the other hand, presents all the characters in search of a family rather than being part of one. Those families – or at least couples living together – that do exist in this act break up by the end of it; Victoria leaves her domineering husband Martin, and Edward, fed up with coldness and rejections of his gay partner Gerry, goes to live with women and apparently even switches his sexual orientation. Cross-gendering of players and their characters appears even more appropriate in this act than in the first one, as many characters desperately search for their true identity.

Even though this search for oneself is not openly presented in Act I, it is present in both acts. In Act I, however, it is thoroughly suppressed by the rigidity of social norms. Edward is forbidden to play with dolls; Clive is outraged when Harry makes sexual advances toward him; and even though adultery and homosexuality are rampant, everyone involved in it is deathly afraid of being caught in the act. In Act II, both these practices are out in the open and discussed actively and at length. This is perhaps the main message that the play carries: time may pass, and social standards may change with it, but people themselves will always retain the same emotions, doubts, and yearnings. They will only deal with them differently, based on what is considered appropriate at this particular time.