Churchill's Cloud 9 - the conclusions of Act 1 & Act 2

Both acts of Caryl Churchill's Cloud Nine attempts to conclude a chain of events. In Act 1, Joshua raises a gun to Clives head, unseen by him and everyone else except for Edward who "puts his ands over his ears". In Act 2, the actress playing Betty in Act 1 returns to "embrace" the current Betty. In responding a narrowing cone of tension in both acts, a conclusion is only satisfied when it is violent: In Act 1, violence threatens to subvert the pre-existing structures of social and gender hierarchies by the implied murder of Clive. In Act 2, we are presented with a different form of violence: Betty's embrace of her 'former' self disrupts the linear integrity of the Act 2 and the play itself by forcing two different times to coexist, indeed, to "embrace". Even though Clive re-emerges near the end of Act 2, his role is detached from the events of present time; he appears as if he was a memory, or an afterthought of Betty's made manifest.

Although both acts appear to 'conclude' by violent means, one may suggest that both Acts resist a 'closure' of its narrative, in other words, both Acts resist and end via satisfactory resolutions. In Act 1, Joshua's act of implied violence (implied because the actual shooting is never actualized onstage) defies a satisfactory resolution of the narrative's conflict. Clive's murder would rob the audience of satisfaction derived from witnessing how Clive's new knowledge of Harry's sexuality 'plays out' after the heightened theatricality of the marriage. Too many loose ends between characters would be left unaddressed: Harry and Edward, Clive-Saunders, Betty-Ellen, Joshua-Harry and Betty-Harry. Rather, Joshua operates as the intrusive 'Other' on two levels: firstly the literal level as a Black manservant, and secondly as a Formalistic level as the wedge in the door that prevents the confrontation and resolution of all previous conflicts and secrets. In Act 2, the Betty-Betty embrace offers no solution when approached from a realistic viewpoint. The very fact that Act 2 Betty can only find satisfactory solace in her 'previous' self (from Act 1) suggests the failure of the Present in offering solutions for its characters. Alternatively, we may also read that the present 'Real' is insufficient satisfy Betty's incompleteness, and the play has to rely on an act based in the 'Imaginary' (or the impossible Absurd) in order to conclude. Hence, it resists closure by virtue of Act 2 Betty's inability to achieve resolution with her-self autonomously, where her Act 1 self intervenes as the intrusive Other.