Cloud Nine the famed play written by Caryl Churchill was recently showing at The American Academy Theatre in LA and blew audiences away. The two act British play, has one act set in British Colonial Africa in the Victorian era and the second half of the play in set in a park in London in 1979. The play is extremely unorthodox, having only five years pass between the first and second act for the characters despite the time jump. In the second act each actor plays a different role and it truly throws the audience into an experience where they are forced to pay attention to the unrealism this play presents.
This production, directed by Ian Ogilvy, was extremely well executed. This play is not an easy production to make enjoyable for a wide audience, especially those of a younger generation. However Ogilvy’s direction was exquisite, especially in his attention the humor of the play. Each actor has a huge challenge in this play, as the play is written for men to playing women, young playing old, and more controversially people switching race.
Some of the cast featured actors such as Harry Farmer, Lilly Dennis, Anna Carlise, Calvin Picou, Alex Fream and many more. This cast worked very well as an ensemble and the performances were at an all-time perfection. The second act hit an all-time humor high; the performances of Harry Farmer and Lilly Dennis are highly notable as they played mother and daughter. Dennis played the role of a thirty something lesbian, single mother called Lin and Farmer played her adolescent daughter Kathy. The two actors worked outrageously well together as mother and daughter, providing an amazing comedic relationship that the audience couldn’t get enough of.
The production as a whole was one of the best productions of Cloud Nine I believe to have been produced in the California, specially seeing as it was an American cast for a British play. Definitely a play that provokes many attitudes and views of feminism and realism that everyone should see.
