German theater practitioner Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) believed that theater should elicit an intellectual rather than an emotional response from audiences, provoking them to consider social and political realities that extend beyond the characters and events depicted onstage. Brecht’s influence can be seen in English playwright Caryl Churchill’s 1979 play Cloud 9: although the play sometimes invites empathetic reactions, it primarily works to engage audiences in an interrogation of patriarchy and colonialism, which it does by placing audiences at a distance, thereby encouraging them to ______blank