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Cloud Nine

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Submitted By lkikiri7
Words 2109
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Fine Arts & the Creative Process: Theatre Emphasis
April 26, 2012
Cloud 9 Critical Response
The play Cloud Nine examines questions of gender identity, sexuality and individual freedom, as they exist within two traditional, oppressive ideological models: colonial imperialism and masculine supremacy. By contrasting these worlds of political and sexual dominance, the play draws a parallel between the paralysis exacted by both frameworks upon the development and expression of unique, authentic personhood. The play dramatizes the argument in startling fashion by challenging the touchstones of theatrical convention. Specifically, it defies usual methods of depiction, for some of the main characters in Cloud 9 are portrayed by actors who do not, in any physical or obvious way, resemble those characters.
Because the play distorts and uproots the standards of dramatic characterization in such a bold way, the staging of Cloud 9 can potentially border on the ludicrous. So thrown is the audience, that members might start to disengage from the activity of the play and dismiss its theatrical experimentation as too obvious to be regarded seriously, too overdone to be clever or provocative. However, if such an impression of Cloud 9 is registered, I believe this is a failing not of the play but of an audience conditioned to assign fixed attributes to characters in order to render them intelligible. Cloud 9 is not interested in offering satisfaction in this rather simple manner, or of treating its audience in this simple, customary process of understanding. In challenging her audiences to re-imagine what a “play” can look and sound like, Churchill simultaneously challenges them to re-imagine the traditional ideologies she wishes to consider. Therefore, coherence in Cloud 9, if not achieved through a collective recognition of character, results ironically from its very lack of

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