Spellbinding Australian actress Heather Mitchell takes on the dual role of her life in Sydney Theatre Company's production of Caryl Churchill's dramatic exploration of oppression and repression, 'Cloud Nine'.
Considered a modern classic, 'Cloud Nine' was first performed in 1979 and parallels the oppression of Victorian-era British colonial Africa with the sexual repression prevalent in contemporary society.
“The play is very much about each generation having difficulties reconciling their past in the present time,” Heather says. “It's echo after echo through the play. I think she [Caryl] is a profound writer; I've never done a Caryl Churchill before and I'm just so thrilled to be in one because I've always admired her so much and I think she is a phenomenal writer.”
In the play's first act, set in a British colony in Africa, Heather plays the role of nine-year-old Edward, the son of colony administrator Clive and his wife Betty. Act two moves the story into the present day, though only 25 years have elapsed for the characters, where Heather swaps into the role of Betty.
“It's such a wonderful gift,” Heather says of her role.
“It really is because in the first half playing a nine-year-old boy for a start is so fabulous in informing how Betty should also be in the second half. What she [Caryl] does so cleverly is you get to actually understand what her son would have felt, whereas in the second half Betty doesn't understand her son. So you get an insight as an actor, which the character is yet to discover and it's wonderful in that way.”
The swapping of characters between performers is a key element to the structure of 'Cloud Nine' as it weaves a tangled web through the realities of relationships across gender, sexuality and time.
“The play is very much about sexuality, gender and cross-gender, and Edward the nine year-old boy is oppressed very much by his homosexuality, he's oppressed by the father and the very difficult lesson he's learning there is that 'love is duty'.
“Love is not an intimate thing, love is duty to the Queen so therefore your own sexuality cannot be explored, even though everyone in the play is trying to explore it no-one is really allowed to. Every single character is trying to work out their sexuality.”
Though written close to forty years ago, the themes and issues dealt with by 'Cloud Nine' retain grave significance to this day, an age when discussions about the fluidity and sexuality and gender have reached the forefront of our social conversation.
“I think it's such a current play. It's amazing she wrote it so long ago and I understand how powerful it would be in the '70s, putting it on at the time of the Sexual Revolution,” Heather says.
“But I think it's a really fantastic play now because now, thank goodness, everyone speaks so openly about cross-gender, transgender, people believing they're born into the wrong body, people trying to understand what's conditioning and what society constructs. It's such a wonderful play in that it really does delicately and humorously deal with all that.”
