[Cloud 9 is] a very funny play full of odd dramatic spasms. It probably helps to have an interest in England and its former empire with its setting sun. Yet beyond this, it is fundamentally a play about love relationships to which that fading Empire merely provides the backcloth.

The play is in two distinct parts. The first is Africa in 1880…. The second part is London in 1980, although as the playwright Caryl Churchill is at ambiguous pains to point out, "… but for the characters it is only 25 years later."

I'm not sure what that means either. Presumably Miss Churchill is implying that the British pattern of relationships has been colored by Britain's imperial past—a concept that other British playwrights such as David Storey and Peter Nichols have also hinted at. Possible—but probably irrelevant to one's ultimate enjoyment of the play.

Miss Churchill is saying here—despite the...