Cloud Nine Synopsis

Cloud Nine is a story about hypocritical people living in 1880s Africa and 1979 London.  The story confronts colonial and sexual repression with a gender-bend cast of characters who traverse 100 years while only aging 25.  Act I takes place in Victorian Africa, while Act II is set in modern London. Much interplay is made of gender and color: for example, Clive, the white settler, has a black servant, Joshua, who is played by a white because he wants to be what the whites want him to be.  Where Act 1 ends with a parody of the traditional marriage, Act 2 is more fluid: both the characters and the play’s structure open up to new possibilities.

Cloud Nine was definitely difficult for me to read at certain points because of how sexually daring it was. There were scenes involving pedophilia that especially made me uncomfortable. I didn’t necessarily enjoy the play, but I did read it for my Script Analysis class. We were asked to do a character analysis for the play and I chose to analyse the character Clive and speak in his voice. Speaking as though I were Clive really helped me wrap my head around the idea of throwing myself into a character completely