Caryl Churchill's Cloud 9 is a sex positive anthem. She describes a family living in colonial Africa which is dominant by this angry old man named Clive who is probably a closet homosexual who refuses to admit it to himself. Clive rules his household with perfect control, abusing them when they fail to live up to his expectations for how they should behave. Eager to please her husband and receive some gratification, Betty has abnegated her personal identity. They have partially adopted a native boy named Joshua on the condition that he deny all loyalty to his native tribe, which he does, but his motivations are certainly questionable. Having intimidate his children thoroughly, Clive has reduced Edward to a timid boy who is afraid to be who he really is and Victoria to a silent ghost of a child. By Act II, each of the family members has grown tired of Clive's misogyny, racism, and abuse. They go their separate ways, eagerly embracing sexuality after years of repression. Edward takes a gay lover. Victoria gets married but soon begins a lesbian affair with her friend, Lin. Finally Betty experiments with her sexuality at every opportunity after leaving Clive. Each of them find a renewed sense of confidence, identity, and value in their new lives now that they are free to be themselves.
To begin with, Churchill at no point passes judgement on any of the character's sexual endeavors except when they are obviously selfish. Clive, for example, does not allow his wife or mistress to have orgasms because he doesn't consider their pleasure desirable. And Edward's boyfriend, Gerry, is player who toys with Edward without making an real commitment to him. Even here, Churchill is careful not to condemn Gerry for his sexual promiscuity. She does portray the way he uses Edward for sex and lies to him about commitment as wrong, but that's it. In keeping with her other literature, this book reflects Churchill's fascination with sexuality. She seems to credit sex as the truest expression of personal identity and thus something beautiful and always desirable. This can be seen any of the countless sexual interactions of the characters from gay affairs to public orgies.
Interestingly enough, Churchill intentionally engages in gender swapping for the casting of this play. Edward is played by a woman. In act I, Victoria's character isn't acted out at all, but a rag doll is used as her stand-in. By Act II, however, she is portrayed by a male actor, as is Lin. Betty is also played by two different actors, doubtless to illustrate her personal transformation. Although somewhat confusing, these dramatic presentation changes serve to further elucidate on Churchill's themes. She is embracing these characters as they wish to see themselves. Edward is bisexual and identifies as a woman, so he is acted by a woman in order to reflect his internal identity more clearly. While Victoria starts out as her father's play-thing, she learns to stand up to him by the second act and comes into her own personhood. Similarly, Betty is played by a different actor at the end because she has become an entirely different, more authentic person by the end since she is no longer intentionally making herself into a person whom she thinks Clive will desire. Each of them suffer from their sexual repression which is fixed easily enough by the second act when they each discover themselves through honesty and curiosity.
