Cloud 9
Playwright: Caryl Churchill. At: Gift Theatre, 4802 N. Milwaukee Ave. Phone: 773-283-7071; $20-$30. Runs through: Dec. 4
Noel Coward in Two Keys
Playwright: Noel Coward. At: ShawChicago at Ruth Page Theater, 1016 N. Dearborn. Phone: 312-587-7390; $12.50-$25. Runs through: Nov. 7
Homosexuality was illegal in England until it was decriminalized with the Sexual Offenses Act of 1967 (at least for men ages 21 and older). For an insightful local look at how major British dramatists dealt with homosexuality in their work before and after that date, be sure to catch ShawChicago's staged reading of Noel Coward in Two Keys and the Gift Theatre's take on Caryl Churchill's 1979 comic drama Cloud 9.
Noel Coward never publicly came out during his lifetime. But just seven years before his death in 1973, Coward overtly portrayed a closeted homosexual in his drama A Song at Twilight—one of three one-acts that comprised his trilogy Suite in Three Keys. For ShawChicago's Noel Coward in Two Keys, A Song at Twilight is paired with Coward's Come into the Garden Maud from the same 1966 trilogy.
Although Noel Coward in Two Keys is just presented as a staged reading with scripts at music stands, the superb Equity acting quartet assembled by director Robert Scogin richly realizes the production.
The social climbing comedy Come into the Garden Maud is largely just an amusing appetizer before the real dramatic sustenance of A Song at Twilight. Richard Henzel shows the personal anguish of a closeted British novelist named Hugo Latymer when he is confronted with a blackmail plot to expose his homosexuality from a former actress fling of his named Carlotta Gray (Barbara Zahora).
Equally compelling is Kate Young as Hugo's verbally abused German beard of a wife, Hilde. When Young offers up Hilde's reasons for marrying Hugo, your heart breaks for her character and the whole unfair situation that Coward shines a light on in regards to gay people often being forced to lead lives behind a wall of lies.
The first act of Churchill's brilliant Cloud 9 not only shows up the hypocrisy of homophobia, but also sexism and racism in a gender-bending comic farce set in colonial Africa. But in Cloud 9's permissive Act II setting in 1979 London, Churchill shows that extra sexual freedom doesn't necessarily bring more sanity to relationships.
Director Maureen Payne-Hahner takes a noble swing at Cloud 9 for Gift Theatre, but she sometimes strikes out with some misguided actor approaches and production elements.
One major flaw is Kurt Conroyd's approach to the patriarch, Clive. The character works best as a heterosexual and stiff-upper-lipped colonialist rather than a fawning aesthete.
Branimira Ivanova's costumes also call unnecessary attention to themselves with distracting with gold lamé touches in Act I and weird 1970s fashions in Act II.
However, even with these wrong-headed touches at Gift Theatre, Cloud 9 still stands out as a daring and thought-provoking play on society's sexual mores in both restrictive and permissive times.
