Cloud Nine (NHB Modern Plays)

Caryl Churchill

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781780011080
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama

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. 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.

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.

'Sharp comedy and a serious purpose are splendidly combined... It unlocks the imagination, liberates the mind, and leaves you weak with laughter' Time Out

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 sunn...