Cloud 9, Metadrama, and the Postsemiotics of the Subject

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate, through the example of Caryl Churchill's Cloud 9, the way dramatic literature can address central problems of contemporary culture and cultural identity with metadramatic techniques. The interpretation relies on the critical apparatus of the postsemiotics of the subject. The metatheatrical framework of the play focuses on the question of subjectivity as cultural, ideological product. The metadramatic markers break the mimetic illusion on the stage, and the dislocated spectator gains a metaperspective on his or her ideological positionality.