Cloud Nine is a play that tosses you this way and then turns you the other way. Presented in the round at the Linda Gross Theater (Atlantic Theater Company), one could feel as though she has been dropped in a kaleidoscope. The actors briskly enter and leave from every corner of the venue. Events swirl and with each turn of the kaleidoscope, it all gets a little stranger and more disorienting. Not that that’s a bad thing.
In Caryl Churchill’s world, set in colonial Africa and 1979 London, you’re not going to feel comfortable. Rather, this world is time-bending, gender-bending, mind-bending, reality-rending good fun. She’s a he and now he’s a she, and he’s a kid and she’s someone else altogether. You just have to let go and slide around with the kaleidoscope.
Read More