Cock, by the much-lauded British playwright Mike Bartlett, is a prolonged lovers’ spat, a battle between M (Matthew Elkins) and W (Rebecca Mozo) for the affections of a young stud named John (Patrick Stafford).
Winner of the 2007 Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement, Cock, like so many contemporary English and Irish dramas, attacks its subject matter in a raw, profane way that serves to keep it from becoming conventional or sentimental. The staging by Cameron Watson in Rogue Machine’s black-box space (painted green for this production) is stripped-down and minimal, as well–there are no set pieces or props. The actors circle each other warily and, like fighting cocks in a barnyard ring, are ready to attack at any time (with words instead of beaks).
Cock is first constructed as a triangle: M is gay and has been living with John for seven years, but that seemingly secure relationship is threatened when John announces that, for the first time in his life, he has fallen in love with a woman (Mozo). M scoffs at this notion (“she must be very mannish or maybe even a trannie,” he says haughtily), only to later explode with rage when he discovers, at a showdown dinner party, that W is both feminine and beautiful.
The three-way battle is heightened when a fourth character, F (Gregory Itzin) is introduced. F is M’s father and has been pressed into action to help persuade John that he is indeed one hundred per cent homosexual. As for poor John, he can’t easily make up his mind, not because he’s a weakling and a taker, but because he’s genuinely confused about his own sexuality and resents anyone else’s attempts to define it for him.
Freedom of choice is what Cock is all about; the theme is not only skillfully dramatized by Bartlett but brought to taut, tense life by the play’s able cast and director.
