Who wouldn’t want to find a comfortable place to rest for a generation? How about four? The stylishly swift Mirvish Production of Caryl Churchill’s Cloud 9 takes up this idea in a smart and highly entertaining way. “It’ll be fine when you reach cloud nine,” the cast sings in perfect harmony, referring to that ideal place, light as air. Only moments later do they trill that you’d also “better watch out when you’re on cloud nine.”
Originally performed in 1979, Churchill’s satire on sex and imperialism still works well in 2010. It may not cut the way it did 30 years ago, but that doesn’t lessen its sense of pleasure. The play is magical in a rare way—taking liberties with race, gender, and time that pay off by rendering a family that could have just as easily been ignored. The two acts take place 100 years apart, only 25 of which occur during the lives of the characters. The first act is set in British Africa circa 1885, depicting the family headed by empire-loving Clive (David Jansen) who wears his heart—the Union Jack—on his belt buckle. His wife Betty (Evan Buliung) is a model of perfection, while their fey son Edward (Ann-Marie MacDonald) tries his unsuccessful best to be a boy.
The performances are uniformly wonderful. As an ensemble, each actor yields to the same satiric tone and springy physicality. Evan Buliung’s cry of “I can’t run, I can’t run at all,” while lifting his dress to reveal more than a garter belt has to be one of the most shockingly funny things I’ve seen onstage in recent memory. Equally amusing is how the closeted Harry (Blair Williams) expresses his urges by lunging in a masculine way towards whatever he desires. If anything, a slight lessening of the humour might have made the first act even more potent, although the play lends itself so well to farce that it’s almost impossible to imagine it any other way.
Still, some of the strongest impressions come when the comedy lapses or stumbles on itself, gesturing towards the suffering underneath the cheer. Near the end of the first act, Joshua (Ben Carlson), Clive’s African butler, sings a hymn with such lovely simplicity that the choice to have the other characters mine it for laughs distracted from it. Joshua’s wide grin for Clive at the song’s conclusion is a reminder of his subjugation and possibly an allusion to minstrelsy. It would have bitten a little deeper had director Alisa Palmer allowed it to stand alone.
In the second act, the family is returned to 1980s England, specifically a local park where now grown-up daughter Victoria watches over her son Tommy. Joshua and Harry seem to have been melded into the gruff, seductive Gerry, who in turn pushes Edward away with one hand while pulling him back with the other. Sexuality is just as conflicted in the modern age in spite of the new freedom to explore hidden yearnings. Lin, a tough-ass lesbian mom, seems discontent, and Betty, now older and newly separated from Clive, is both in awe of and confused by the way things work between men and women. Palmer deals with the shifting times and locations elegantly, and the naturalistic performances are a real joy, particularly during several complex monologues.
Also noteworthy are Judith Bowden’s costumes. In the first act, they fulfill and subvert the clichés of the way a proper British-African family should look, with perfectly constructed dresses with frayed hems or a blood-spattered bustle. In the second act, they represent the current time period while referring to items worn in the past. For instance, under his button-down, Martin (Blair Williams) wears the shirt that Harry was wearing in the first act—a very clever choice. Paul Sportelli’s original music is also a wonderful addition to the production.
The actual concept of “cloud nine” is different for each character. For Churchill, it is the cinnamon heart of darkness—the fantasy of empire and intoxication of sex that has somehow failed to change anything significant in the proceeding generations. This is bleakly expressed late in the second act through the specter of Lin’s brother, recently killed in Ireland. “Have you come back to tell us something?” asks Lin, hopefully. “No,” he replies. “I’ve come for a fuck.”
There is a kindness to Cloud 9 that some of Churchill’s later work—namely her minimalist pieces such as A Number and Drunk Enough to Say I Love You?—is stripped of. In this play, her critical hand is paired with a desire to entertain; to be witty. Like Joshua, who masks his contempt with a smile, Cloud 9 shows the playwright at her conflicted beginnings, and that is a fine place to be.
Cloud 9 runs at the Panasonic Theatre through February 21. Tickets are $20 for students with ID. For more information, visit cloud9toronto.com.
