Nicks of Time in the Italian Translation and Staging of Caryl Churchill’s Cloud Nine/Settimo cielo

This contribution aims at exploring the multiple border crossings enacted by theatre translation as it happens through time and, at the same time, makes time happen in the overlapping of distinct moments: of writing, of translating, and of performing. The Italian staging of Caryl Churchill’s Cloud Nine, Settimo cielo, produced by the independent theatre company Bluemotion and premiered in Rome at Teatro India in February 2018, enacts this disruption of linear time through its relationship with the play’s already challenging timeline. The passing of time is a central theme in its conception and design: as the director, Giorgina Pi, has stated, her choices were informed by the need to look at Cloud Nine from the vantage point of the present, foregrounding this staging as a sort of “third act”, following the first set in 1879 Africa and the second in 1979 London, which was also the time of the first performance of the play. This production emphasizes Cloud Nine’s apparently outdated rebelliousness, avoiding any cultural reference beyond 1979: through a detailed analysis of the mise-en-scene, I argue that the staging of a translation of a piece, especially when each event is separated from the other by several decades as in this case study, creates what Elizabeth Grosz would call a «nick of time», allowing the audience to become aware of the passing of time and, in the same movement, of the persistent urgency of the issues confronted by the play itself.