Cloud 9 theatre review

For some years now, I have been under the impression that Caryl Churchill was an all too serious playwright with an axe to grind and a general disdain for society.  I don't know where I got any of that from, but I've been avoiding her plays for years and now I feel quite the fool for so doing.  Cloud 9 was a joyous romp that touches on issues that may or may not be deemed serious and important.  If anything, her deft portrayal of contrasting viewpoints highlights the fact that importance is subjective.

Sam Shore's production for Good Company is extremely stylish.  The set is at once simple, functional, and interesting, while the period costumes hold up well to close inspection (I was in the front row).  I felt, though, more could have been done to establish the timeframe of Act II.  The costumes could have belonged to any period in the last 30 years - except for Cathy's dress, which would have looked out of place at any time in the last 30 years.  Each costume, though, is very well suited to the character - except perhaps Cathy's dress, which only suited the character in so far as both she and her costume were extremely difficult to bear.  As if bratty children are not annoying at the best of times, a poorly acted bratty child is tiresome indeed.  David Capstick certainly showed less affinity with this role than his chauvinistic master of the house whose antics I rather enjoyed in Act I.

Each actor in Cloud 9 portrays two characters, and I felt that most of the actors were a lot more at home with one of their characters than the other.  Some were stronger in Act I, others in Act II.  Special credit, then, must go to Joel Herbert, Steven Anthony Maxwell and Francis Mountjoy, who were each at the top of their games from start to finish.  In particular, I enjoyed Maxwell's gift for comedy and Herbert's extraordinary quality of being awkwardly suave.  Donogh Rees and Renee Lyons were rather good in Act I, but were both so outstanding in Act II that I struggled to reconcile that they were the same actors.

It turns out that Cloud 9 is not such a confronting play at all.  Churchill does face the challenges of sexual identity with an honesty that may have been bold at the time of the first production, but now seems so commonplace that one could appreciate the play as a rather frivolous comedy.  I know I appreciated the humour more than any other aspect.

I haven't even mentioned the music yet!  Several scenes were underscored by piano and/or strings.  This was handled with great panache and elevated the overall tone to make it something quite refined.  I was less taken with the songs the cast sang to punctuate the play's start and end, but they certainly detracted nothing from this fine production.

See this play if you want a good night out.  The production is slick, and the play is hilarious.