About the Show

The Seeing Place Theater revives Caryl Churchill's 1979 masterwork, a playful take on sexual politics and an audacious exploration of power and perception.

The searing comedy is a parody and spoof of the Victorian Empire and its rigid attitudes, especially toward sex. There is Clive, a British functionary; his wife Betty (played by a man); their daughter Victoria (a rag doll); Clive’s friend Harry, an explorer; Mrs. Saunders, who runs about dressed in a riding habit; Clive’s son Edward, who still plays with dolls and is played by a woman; and Joshua, a native servant who knows exactly what is really going on. What really is going on is a marvelous send-up and nonstop round-robin of sexual liaisons; all the while the natives are restless in the background. The second act shifts to London in 1980, except that for the surviving characters, it is only 25 years later, and all those repressed sexual longings have evaporated, along with the Empire.

Critic Reviews (5)

"Seeing Place Theater does this masterwork more than justice in a very fine production...They take this beast of a play, bursting with energy and opportunity, and produce an intelligible and pointed and very enjoyable production…A production totally invested in the characters, the actors' performance of those characters, the relationships between the characters, and the nuances of the double-casting…The cast performed with great aptitude, a sophisticated quasi-Brechtian performance.”
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"While the production occasionally loses focus in the interest of accentuating theatricality, on the whole The Seeing Place meets the challenges Churchill lays out by emphasizing the at times blinding absurdity of power and oppression...Even if this long production occasionally drags and at times imposes its concept without the most nuance, The Seeing Place has a great deal of fun examining the instability of society’s prefabricated identities."
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"As this spirited, if uneven revival shows, 'Cloud 9' may have lost some of its shock value, but the dramatic core of the piece, skillfully built by Churchill, still holds up...The early scenes are played with a good deal of shrillness and bombast...Once the story gets underway, however, the dark comedy begins to land with more nuance and an intriguing domestic power dynamic emerges...The second act is considerably more subdued, and the actors wear their roles with greater ease."
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"The strengths of the concept of co-directors Brandon Walker and Erin Cronican are the clarity in the parallels of the relationships and the straightforwardness of the style...This very challenging play unfolds moment by moment due to the company’s skillful approach. They have a sharp focus on the value of the message in Ms. Churchill’s writing, and make it accessible and relevant to a diverse present-day audience. There are very impressive performances."
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“An edgy, seat-of-the-pants production...It's all marvelous stuff, even if it is at times quite head-spinning. But as much as anything, ‘Cloud 9’ is an actors' play, with wonderfully juicy roles to sink their teeth into. To a person, the cast embraces its barely tamed wildness with all the gusto they can muster, giving the whole an exhilarating improvisational vibe.”
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Trailer

Creative team

The Seeing Place Theater Company