Review: Cloud 9 (The Gift Theatre)

  
  
Cloud 9 

Written by Caryl Churchill
Directed by Maureen Payne-Hahner
at Gift Theatre, 4802 N. Milwaukee (map)
thru Dec 4  |  tickets: $22-$32   |  more info

Check for half-price tickets 
  
  
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It’s not all bliss in Gift Theatre’s thoughtful production

The Gift Theatre presents

Cloud 9

Review by Dan Jakes

“You can’t separate fucking and economics,” says one of the women in Caryl Churchill‘s 1979 comedy.   Start making more money than your spouse, and things could suddenly change in the bedroom. Tiptoe outside gender normativity, and you risk getting stripped of your proverbial pants in other relationships. There are few constants and even fewer rules that survive societal shifts, suggests Churchill, be it in a hyper-structured Victorian home or (supposedly) liberated late-20th century London. At the crux of it, in any era, there’s going to be some geopolitical implications to cunnilingus.

Those implications cross oceans and centuries in Gift Theatre’s assertive, captivating two-and-half-hour production surrounding two households and the sexual proclivities within them. The first act, which locates a British family in a Victorian Africa, riffs on what we already know: powerful men enjoy an unfair double-standard regarding fidelity, gender roles are silly societal constructs, and inclinations toward taboos are more common than meets the eye. Churchill makes a circus out of the proceedings, swapping characters’ sexes and ethnicities to illuminate the absurdity of their buried assumptions. Under the roof and tyranny of Clive, the petulant and womanizing blowhard in-charge (hilariously played by Kurt Conroyd), the wealthy family maintains their respective positions in the face of oppression. The wife (Kenny Mihlfried) cowers, the boy (Jessie Fisher) learns "how to be a man," and the mother-in-law (Alexandra Main) averts her attention when she ought not to. Gift’s ensemble, directed by Maureen Payne-Hahner, finds the humor in what could otherwise be a droll sociology thesis.

If Cloud 9 dates itself a bit with easily dismissible-stereotype commentary in the first act, it only serves to deepen the impact of the second, which centers on versions of the same characters set in the post-sexual revolution 1970′s. Freed (sort of) from male domination, Churchill’s characters grapple with new power and sexual complications that have no easy culprit to point a finger at. Liberation comes as a mixed blessing: a gay couple struggles to find a consensus on monogamy, another couple negotiates business and family, and a mother (Alexandra Main, delivering a touching monolog about letting go of inhibitions) realizes that a woman doesn’t need a partner to enjoy her own body. This competent and well-paced Cloud 9 is ambiguous where it should be, never reaching beyond the grasp of what can be said about relationships, and emphatic where it counts.

Rating: ★★★½

Cloud 9 continues through December 4th at Gift Theatre, 4802 N. Milwaukee (map), with performances Thursdays-Saturdays at 7:30pm.  Tickets are $22-$23, and are available by phone (773-283-7071) or through Gift Theatre’s website. (check for half-price tickets at Goldstar.com). More information at TheGiftTheatre.org.  (Funning time: 2 hours 30-minutes, which includes one intermission)

All photos by Hillary Clemens and Amelia Scott

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