CLOUD NINE. To 19 June.
Sheffield
CLOUD NINE
by Caryl Churchill
Crucible Theatre To 19 June 2004
Tue-Sat 7.30pm Mat Wed & Sat 2.30pm
Audio-described/BSL Signed/Talkback 17 June
Runs 2hr 55min One interval
TICKETS: 0114 249 6000
Review: Timothy Ramsden 12 June
Just about everything's fine with this new Cloud Nine.Being first doesn't mean being best though genuine artistic innovation, rooted in the need to express material a new way, often goes with depth of imagination. Still, Caryl Churchill holds a unique place in her experiments with form and technique, which play-out within an overall naturalistic manner. And Sheffield Crucible's three-play season, plus recent revivals of her 1982 Top Girls, indicate the freshness of her writing and social vision.
The freshness is especially remarkable with Cloud Nine because its subject is sex and sexual politics, common dramatic themes since the 1979 premiere. Yet the play still seems ahead of the game, partly by contrasting the Victorian imperial heyday with 1970s society.
Anna Mackmin's revival is a less intense affair than Max Stafford-Clark's original production. It makes for almost too easy assimilation in act one, where the stock-type dialogue is enforced by the cartoon playing to make an often laughed-at type of character more laughable still. Yet the approach gains in making the cross-gender playing more noticeably out-of-kilter with the setting.
Which is, if not Cloud Nine, a kind of tree-house. Where games are played and fantasies indulged. It remains so for the more complex second act where the cross-playing resonates with its predecessor. Both new freedoms and new anxieties exercise these characters, the mid-act Cloud Nine' song being less the restrained comment of 1979, more a Hair-like party-piece, a moment's hopeful relaxation.
The show ends quietly with Victorian Betty (Daniel Evans) and seventies Betty (Lucy Briers) circling each other in a pool of light. Evans and Briers are twin luminaries of a strong cast, which also includes Wendy Nottingham's itchingly insinuated Victorian and contemporary open lesbians and Claudia Harrison as a buttoned-up empire lady and modern seeking her sexual identity amid conflicting relationships.
The play seems to give the women more scope; men seem marginal in both acts. But Evans, as the man-created Victorian Lady and modern gay, plus Briers as a Victorian lad denying his inclination to play with dolls, and the straight lady home from the Raj in times that have moved on, are both splendid.
Edward/Betty: Lucy Briers
Joshua/Gerry: Toby Dantzic
Betty/Edward: Daniel Evans
Maud/Victoria: Claudia Harrison
Ellen/Mrs Saunders/Lin: Wendy Nottingham
Clive/Cathy/Soldier: Paul Ritter
Harry Bagley/Martin: Nicolas Tennant
Director: Anna Mackmin
Designer: Jonathan Fensom
Lighting: Neil Austin
Sound: Nick Greenhill
Composer: Andy Roberts
Musical Director/Arranger: Grant Parsons
Additional arrangements: Rob Riley
Dialect coach: Wiliam Conacher
Choreographer: Scarlett Mackmin
2004-06-15 14:25:59