CTC actress Stephanie Traversa. Photo: Seth Jacobson Photography

The Contemporary Theater Company will bring Caryl Churchill's delightful gender-bending post-colonial farce Cloud Nine to their theater in Wakefield in April.

Cloud Nine challenges the audience to think critically, laugh and enjoy a wild and sometimes bizarre ride. When it first opened in New York, The New York Times called it “intelligent, inventive and funny,” while a reviewer from Daily News said, “I really don't know when I've had more fun. It blends farce, pathos into a work of total theatre."

In Act 1 of this time-shifting farce, we are in Victorian era colonial Africa with a seemingly normal British family, but with a twist. With men playing women and women playing men, it is a marvelous send up of rigid Victorian attitudes (and a non-stop round robin of sexual liaisons).

For Act 2, the audience is suddenly dropped into London in the 1980s, but for the surviving characters it is only twenty-five years later and all those repressed sexual longings have evaporated along with the Empire. The dirty secrets of Act 1 are the celebrated lifestyles of Act 2 as the characters explore their sexuality and finally accept themselves.

The cast includes many of the CTC's fine ensemble, including Amy Lee Connell, Tammy Brown, Stephanie Traversa, Ashley Macamaux, Andrew Katzman, Birk Wozniak, and Sami Avigdor.

Performances are April 4, 5, 10, 11, 12, 25, 26, 27, May 1, 2, and 3 at 7 p.m. at The Contemporary Theater, 327 Main Street, Wakefield, RI. Tickets are available at contemporarytheatercompany.com or by calling the Box Office at 410-218-0282. $20 for Friday and Saturday, $15 for Sunday, and Thursday is Pay-What-You-Can.

Editorial note: Written from a press release.