Cloud 9 Book

Cloud 9 is a dive into the deep end of sexual politics.

From the cast list'which indicates that some women and girls should be played by men, a black character played by a white, and a boy by a woman'it's clear that readers are in for an adventure.

How successfully this works is another question.

Cloud 9 is broken into two acts. The first act tells the story of a British family in Africa during the Victorian era. They are part of an oppressive regime, and the oppression of the Africans by the British is reflected in the family by the oppression of the family by the father.

The second act is set in the late 1970s, and many of the same characters appear, though they have only aged 25 years. In this act, the characters satisfy some of their sexual longings, and we see a vastly different family dynamic. The characters have moved home, changed, and grown into their own personalities.

As a didactic text, Cloud 9 certainly succeeds. It argues that masculinity is oppressive and that femininity and sexual freedom are the source of "more energy." Clive, the patriarch in the family and the British loyalist, reprimands and represses everyone else while performing his own acts of moral ambiguity on the side. Gay and lesbian characters suppressed in the first act are the source of all things good in the second act. Oppressive government is bad, sexual freedom is cathartic, and little else seems to be important. You can't help but see the point.

But because it is so programmatic, the play, in my mind, fails on a human level. The characters (as they are written) show little depth, and the moments in the second act when they are meant to confront their weaknesses are overwrought. They are made in black and white. Little is left to mystery. Only Betty, Clive's wife, who appears in both acts, seems to show shades of gray in her feeling and in her development. Only she seems caught in the middle ground that most of us live our lives in.

Lastly, shortly after reading this, I had a conversation with someone about August Wilson's Fences, in which each character searches for fulfillment in his or her on way: maintaining a house, holding together a family, seeking a football scholarship, etc. In Cloud 9, fulfillment for every character comes from sex or subservience.

Do I recommend it? Not particularly. It's a fun and provocative read, though.
Would I teach it? Doubt it.
Lasting impressions: Cloud 9 works as an exploration into sexual politics and fulfillment. And there are some interesting structural decisions in it. But that's about it.