Cloud 9 is an inventive, surrealistic and entertaining look at sexual repression and sexual role conditioning. Act I takes place in Victorian Africa, suggesting the parallel between colonial and sexual repression. Clive, the white man, imposes his ideals on his family and the natives. Betty, his wife, is played by a man because she wants to be what men want her to be; and Joshua, their black servant, is played by a white man because he wants to be what whites want him to be. The second act is set in London in 1979--in the changing sexuality of our own time. The characters, who have aged only twenty-five years, have become more real to themselves, men suffer as well as women, and our identities are warped by conforming to "unnatural norms." Paperback. This item may require additional shipping time due to availability.