Kpfa - Bay Area Theater

KPFA theatre critic Richard Wolinsky reviews “Cloud 9” by Caryl Churchill, at Custom Made Theatre in San Francisco through December 15, 2019. Custom Made website Text of review: During the Victorian era, the tyranny of colonialism went unchecked, as did sexual and gender-based oppression. Straitjacketed in their roles through patriarchy, the power disparity between men and women paralleled the relationship of whites and people of color all through the British empire. Those connections are explored, deconstructed and reconstructed in Caryl Churchill’s now classic play from 1979, Cloud 9, performed with gusto and bravado, and directed by Allie Moss, at Custom Made Theatre in San Francisco through December 15th. The play functions in two symmetrical parts: Act One takes place during the 19th century, in Africa, and presents itself as comedy. To show how women’s roles were determined by men, the wife of Clive, the colonial administrator, is played by a man, and her young son by a woman, and to show the parallel w