Cloud nine

C. Churchill

Cloud Nine follows the story of a family. The first act takes place on a South African plantation during the English Victorian Era, while in the second act, though the characters have only aged 20 years, the action takes place in London, England in the 1970's. Clive, the family patron, is the center of a male-oriented soceity and incourages traditional family and gender roles. For the first act, his wife Betty is played by a man, his gay son Edward is played by a woman, and his black servant is played by a white man. Immediately we learn that only Clive is satisfied with his station in life, where the other characters suffer many indignities to themselves that go unnoticed by everyone else. By the second act, time has moved forward and we watch the characters trying to adapt to an ever changing world in which parts of them is too withdrawn.