Clive 9

As much as I try to move on from Cloud 9, I am constantly reminded of it in my everyday life, which I guess is a good thing and perhaps a compliment to the author. After doing that music project, I am almost haunted by these characters and what Churchill's intention was by manipulating them to an audience's standards the way she did. I know I've said in class that it's about feeling and not so much based on story and I'm still having struggles believing that feeling outweighs the actual plot. I think most will agree that in this case, plot is not the most essential part of the show. It has epic qualities that allow it to be sort of below the surface of the show, and I think most will agree that the plot is much more noticeable and easier to follow in the first act than in the second act...why is that?

I was thinking about Brecht and how his ideas relate to this play. In a section from my Theatre HIstory textbook (Theatre Histories: An Introduction) that discusses Brecht (and specifically Mother Courage) and signs he would use. Bruce McConachie is not talking about the literal signs that Brecht would use, but rather three signs or ideas that were evident throughout pieces. The signs are (in no particular order) Specific History, Universal History, and Theatrical Present. It seems to me that by setting the first act in Victorian/colonial Africa she is giving the audience a "specific history" which is easy to cling to. Everyone can sort of place what Victorian/colonial Africa may have looked like and peculiarities of the characters can be attributed to the fact that it was set in the last 1800's, that's just normal. For instance, Clive's constant constant display of male chauvinism is clearly attributed to the era in which Clive is present. For example, in class discussion this never really got brought up in detail, which I thought was interesting because it was sort of let go and just ridden off as his character, but he says things like "dark, female lust,"(34) "if I shot you every British man and women would applaud me," (34) "There is something dark about women, that threatens what is best in us," (40) and "Effeminacy is contagious" (40); he is obviously attributing women to a lesser being and by calling them dark, relates them to the tribal "savages" that surround him. In a way, everyone is living to a Clive standard in the household, Joshua takes on the persona of a white person because Clive wants it, Clive is the prominent role in shaping Edward into being a male (not male as in sex, not man as in gender), and he puts people in their place (Harry, followed by Ellen, then through guilt, Betty). His representation of colonialism on his own family, trying to shape them into things they are not (male, female, man, woman, black, white, straight, gay) gives the audience something to cling to, historically.

When Churchill places the action of the second act in a contemporary setting (1979) she gives a universal history to the audience, something they can all definitely relate (or should be able to). It seems to that with the absence of Clive, we lose structure in the play. It seems that inconsistencies become more focused on a personal matter and a relationship feeling, rather than a plot moving piece, which is more Epic, but pales when compared to act one. I think our plot takes the same role that the actor playing Clive takes; it becomes a child with silly, vulgar rhymes and stories. Clive's absence of a strong male figure, over bearing in his masculinity, displays a breakdown of structure, and perhaps that's a point she's trying to make. Notice the sexual change as well, in the first act there's a lot of male/male sex happening when compared to female/female or male/female and in act two, male/male is the lesser of female/female. Lesbian ideals are more present in the second act than those "dark" feelings from the first act (If only Cathy would grow up to be a lesbian, poetic justice?). Anyway, back to my point, if I can find it, I think that if we apply these signs of Specific and Universal history to Cloud 9, we'll find that when given a specific history (1879 Colonial Africa) the audience can focus more clearly and understand the characters and that in turn has more universal appeal, but when it is switched and present times becomes the universal history the appeal becomes specific and we lose touch of what's going on, at least that's how it was for me.

Brecht's third sign is Theatrical Present and there's no doubt that throughout this entire play you are away of the fact that's it's a play. Not only do the words lend itself to that, but the way it is cast, the mind is constantly thrown through a loop by what is happening on stage. I think, in a way, her cross -gender/age/race casting is representative of Brecht's literal signs. "Here, I'm making a point! The little boy feels like a Girl!"

The more I think on this play, the more epic, in my mind, it becomes.