YOU ARE DARK LIKE THIS CONTINENT

Okay, so as the last play of the quarter, I'm teaching Cloud Nine, by Caryl Churchill. I was a bit taken aback when I read it (I assigned it without having read it before). And so, for your amusement (?) I will be including a series of "best of" quotations. I'm not going to attempt analysis, but just as a caveat, yes, Churchill definitely intended some absurdity here, but since the play was written in 1979, it is not clear to me which aspects of the play were absurd to her vs. absurd to me.

But, enjoy! Esp. if I've already attempted to tell you about these.

BEST OF #1 (this is really the best/worst). This is from the first act, which is set in "Victorian Africa":

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CLIVE: You will be raped by cannibals.

MRS SAUNDERS: I just wanted to get out of your house.

CLIVE: My God, what women put us through. Cruel, cruel. I think you are the sort of woman who would enjoy whipping somebody. I’ve never met one before.

MRS SAUNDERS: Can I tell you something, Clive?

CLIVE: Let me tell you something first. Since you came to the house I have had an erection twenty-four hours a day except for ten minutes after the time we had intercourse.

MRS SAUNDERS: I don’t think that’s physically possible.

CLIVE: You are causing me appalling physical suffering. Is this the way to treat a benefactor?

(…)

CLIVE: Caroline, if you were shot with poisoned arrows do you know what I’d do? I’d fuck your dead body and poison myself. Caroline, you smell amazing. You terrify me. You are dark like this continent. Mysterious. Treacherous. When you rode to me through the night. When you fainted in my arms. When I came to you in your bed, when I lifted the mosquito netting, when I said let me in, let me in. Oh don’t shut me out, Caroline, let me in.

He has been caressing her feet and legs. He disappears completely under her skirt.

MRS SAUNDERS: Please stop. I can’t concentrate. I want to go home. I wish I didn’t enjoy the sensation because I don’t like you, Clive. I do like living in your house where there’s plenty of guns. But I don’t like you at all. But I do like the sensation. Well I’ll have it then. I’ll have it, I’ll have it. . .

(. . . )

CLIVE: Caroline, you are so voracious. Do let go. Tidy yourself up. There’s a hair in my mouth.