Cloud Nine E-Book

Caryl Churchill

• Herausgeber: Nick Hern Books
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

A landmark play about sexual politics in colonial Africa and modern-day Britain, in which all our assumptions about sex and gender are stunningly exploded. Set in both colonial Africa and modern-day Britain, Cloud Nine is about relationships – between women and men, men and men, women and women. It is about sex, work, mothers, Africa, power, children, grandmothers, politics, and money. Caryl Churchill's play Cloud Nine was first staged by Joint Stock and premiered in London at the Royal Court Theatre in 1979. It has since been staged all over the world.

Leseprobe

CARYL CHURCHILL

CLOUD

9

London

NICK HERN BOOKS

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Title Page

Author’s Introduction

Note on the Text

Original Production

Act One

Act Two

About the Author

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

Cloud Nine

Cloud Nine was written for Joint Stock Theatre Group in 1978-79. The company’s usual work method is to set up a workshop in which the writer, director and actors research a particular subject. The writer then goes away to write the play, before returning to the company for a rehearsal and rewrite period. In the case of Cloud Nine the workshop lasted for three weeks, the writing period for twelve, and the rehearsal for six.

The workshop for Cloud Nine was about sexual politics. This meant that the starting point for our research was to talk about ourselves and share our very different attitudes and experiences. We also explored stereotypes and role reversals in games and improvisations, read books and talked to other people. Though the play’s situations and characters were not developed in the workshop, it draws deeply on this material, and I wouldn’t have written the same play without it.

When I came to write the play, I returned to an idea that had been touched on briefly in the workshop – the parallel between colonial and sexual oppression, which Genet calls ‘the colonial or feminine mentality of interiorised repression’. So the first act of Cloud Nine takes place in Victorian Africa, where Clive, the white man, imposes his ideals on his family and the natives. Betty, Clive’s wife, is played by a man because she wants to be what men want her to be, and, in the same way, Joshua, the black servant, is played by a white man because he wants to be what whites want him to be. Betty does not value herself as a woman, nor does Joshua value himself as a black. Edward, Clive’s son, is played by a woman for a different reason partly to do with the stage convention of having boys played by women (Peter Pan, radio plays, etc.) and partly with highlighting the way Clive tries to impose traditional male behaviour on him. Clive struggles throughout the act to maintain the world he wants to see – a faithful wife, a manly son. Harry’s homosexuality is reviled, Ellen’s is invisible. Rehearsing the play for the first time, we were initially taken by how funny the first act was and then by the painfulness of the relationships – which then became more funny than when they had seemed purely farcical.

The second act is set in London in 1979 – this is where I wanted the play to end up, in the changing sexuality of our own time. Betty is middle-aged, Edward and Victoria have grown up. A hundred years have passed, but for the characters only twenty-five years. There were two reasons for this. I felt the first act would be stronger set in Victorian times, at the height of colonialism, rather than in Africa during the 1950s. And when the company talked about their childhoods and the attitudes to sex and marriage that they had been given when they were young, everyone felt that they had received very conventional, almost Victorian expectations and that they had made great changes and discoveries in their lifetimes.

The first act, like the society it shows, is male dominated and firmly structured. In the second act, more energy comes from the women and the gays. The uncertainties and changes of society, and a more feminine and less authoritarian feeling, are reflected in the looser structure of the act. Betty, Edward and Victoria all change from the rigid positions they had been left in by the first act, partly because of their encounters with Gerry and Lin.

In fact, all the characters in this act change a little for the better. If men are finding it hard to keep control in the first act they are finding it hard to let go in the second: Martin dominates Victoria, despite his declarations of sympathy for feminism, and the bitter end of colonialism is apparent in Lin’s soldier brother, who dies in Northern Ireland. Betty is now played by a woman, as she gradually becomes real to herself. Cathy is played by a man, partly as a simple reversal of Edward being played by a woman, partly because the size and presence of a man on stage seemed appropriate to the emotional force of young children, and partly, as with Edward, to show more clearly the issues involved in learning what is considered correct behaviour for a girl.

It is essential for Joshua to be played by a white, Betty (I) by a man, Edward (I) by a woman, and Cathy by a man.

The soldier should be played by the actor who plays Cathy. The doubling of Mrs Saunders and Ellen is not intended to make a point so much as for sheer fun – and of course to keep the company to seven in each act. The doubling can be done in any way that seems right for any particular production. The first production went Clive-Cathy, Betty-Edward, Edward-Betty, Maud-Victoria, Mrs Saunders/Ellen-Lin, Joshua-Gerry, Harry-Martin. When we did the play again, at the Royal Court in 1980, we decided to try a different doubling: Clive-Edward, Betty-Gerry, Edward-Victoria, Maud-Lin, Mrs Saunders/ Ellen-Betty, Joshua-Cathy, Harry-Martin. I’ve a slight preference for the first way because I like seeing Clive become Cathy, and enjoy the Edward-Betty connections. Some doublings aren’t practicable, but any way of doing the doubling seems to set up some interesting resonances between the two acts. Gerry’s age, referred to as thirty-two in the text, can be altered to fit the actor.

C.C. 1983

Cloud Nine was first performed at Dartington College of Arts on Wednesday 14 February 1979 by the Joint Stock Theatre Group, then on tour and at the Royal Court Theatre, London, with the following cast:

ACT ONE

CLIVE, a colonial administrator

Antony Sher

BETTY, his wife, played by a man

Jim Hooper

JOSHUA, his black servant, played by a white

Tony Rohr

EDWARD, his son, played by a woman

Julie Covington

MAUD, his mother-in-law

Miriam Margolyes

ELLEN, Edward’s governess / MRS SAUNDERS, a widow

Carole Hayman

HARRY BAGLEY, an explorer

William Hoyland

ACT TWO

BETTY

Julie Covington

EDWARD, her son

Jim Hooper

VICTORIA, her daughter

Miriam Margolyes

MARTIN, Victoria’s husband

William Hoyland

LIN

Carole Hayman

CATHY, Lin’s daughter aged 4 and 5, played by a man

Antony Sher

GERRY, Edward’s lover

Tony Rohr

Director: Max Stafford-Clark

Assistant Director: Les Waters

Designer: Peter Hartwell

Musical Director: Andy Roberts

Lighting Director: Robin Myerscough-Walker

Except for Cathy, characters in Act Two are played by actors of their own sex.

Act One takes place in a British colony in Africa in Victorian times. Act Two takes place in London in 1979. But for the characters it is twenty-five years later.

ACT ONE

Scene One

Low bright sun. Veranda. Flagpole with Union Flag. The family – CLIVE, BETTY, EDWARD, VICTORIA, MAUD, ELLEN, JOSHUA.

ALL (sing)

Come gather, sons of England, come gather in your pride.

Now meet the world united, now face it side by side;

Ye who the earth’s wide corners, from veldt to prairie, roam.

From bush and jungle muster all who call old England ‘home’.

Then gather round for England,

Rally to the flag,

From north and south and east and west

Come one and all for England!

CLIVE

This is my family. Though far from home

We serve the Queen wherever we may roam.

I am a father to the natives here,

And father to my family so dear.

He presents BETTY. She is played by a man.

My wife is all I dreamt a wife should be,

And everything she is she owes to me.

BETTY

I live for Clive. The whole aim of my life

Is to be what he looks for in a wife.

I am a man’s creation as you see,

And what men want is what I want to be.

CLIVE presents JOSHUA. He is played by a white.

CLIVE

My boy’s a jewel. Really has the knack.

You’d hardly notice that the fellow’s black.

JOSHUA

My skin is black but oh my soul is white.

I hate my tribe. My master is my light.

I only live for him. As you can see,

What white men want is what I want to be.

CLIVE presents EDWARD. He is played by a woman.

CLIVE

My son is young. I’m doing all I can

To teach him to grow up to be a man.

EDWARD

What father wants I’d dearly like to be.

I find it rather hard as you can see.

CLIVE presents VICTORIA, who is a dummy,

MAUD, and ELLEN.

CLIVE

No need for any speeches by the rest.

My daughter, mother-in-law, and governess.

ALL (sing)

O’er countless numbers she, our Queen,

Victoria reigns supreme;

O’er Africa’s sunny plains, and o’er

Canadian frozen stream;

The forge of war shall weld the chains of brotherhood secure;

So to all time in ev’ry clime our Empire shall endure.

Then gather round for England,

Rally to the flag,

From north and south and east and west

Come one and all for England!

All go except BETTY. CLIVE comes.

BETTY

Clive?

CLIVE

Betty. Joshua!

JOSHUA comes with a drink for CLIVE.

BETTY

I thought you would never come. The day’s so long without you.

CLIVE

Long ride in the bush.

BETTY

Is anything wrong? I heard drums.

CLIVE

Nothing serious. Beauty is a damned good mare. I must get some new boots sent from home. These ones have never been right. I have a blister.

BETTY

My poor dear foot.

CLIVE

It’s nothing.

BETTY

Oh but it’s sore.

CLIVE

We are not in this country to enjoy ourselves. Must have ridden fifty miles. Spoke to three different headmen who would all gladly chop off each other’s heads and wear them round their waists.

BETTY

Clive!

CLIVE

Don’t be squeamish, Betty, let me have my joke.

And what has my little dove done today?

BETTY

I’ve read a little.

CLIVE

Good. Is it good?

BETTY

It’s poetry.

CLIVE

You’re so delicate and sensitive.

BETTY

And I played the piano. Shall I send for the children?

CLIVE

Yes, in a minute. I’ve a piece of news for you.

BETTY

Good news?

CLIVE

You’ll certainly think it’s good. A visitor.

BETTY

From home?

CLIVE

No. Well of course originally from home.

BETTY

Man or woman?

CLIVE

Man.

BETTY

I can’t imagine.

CLIVE

Something of an explorer. Bit of a poet. Odd chap but brave as a lion. And a great admirer of yours.

BETTY

What do you mean? Whoever can it be?

CLIVE

With an H and a B. And does conjuring tricks for little Edward.

BETTY

That sounds like Mr Bagley.

CLIVE

Harry Bagley.

BETTY

He certainly doesn’t admire me, Clive, what a thing to say. How could I possibly guess from that. He’s hardly explored anything at all, he’s just been up a river, he’s done nothing at all compared to what you do. You should have said a heavy drinker and a bit of a bore.

CLIVE

But you like him well enough. You don’t mind him coming?

BETTY

Anyone at all to break the monotony.

CLIVE

But you have your mother. You have Ellen.

BETTY

Ellen is a governess. My mother is my mother.

CLIVE

I hoped when she came to visit she would be company for you.