Three smart actors: Nathan Witte, Troy Mundle, and Lee Tomaschefski (Screen grab)
Let’s talk about sex. That’s what Cock is all about — well sex, love, and identity.
In Mike Bartlett’s Olivier Award-winning script from 2009, John has left his male lover M when he meets W and has sex with a woman for the first time. He thinks W’s vagina is “amazing” and he falls for her — sort of. John wants to get back together with M, but he also wants to stay with W. So the three of them have dinner together to hash it out — the sort of thing that happens all the time in the theatre and almost never in real life.
Stylistically, the cool, cool thing about Cock is that the action all spills out in a circular playing area — like a cockfighting ring. Other than the circle, there’s no set, there are no props, and, although the characters serve and consume food and drinks, there’s no mime. This keeps the focus on the “cockfights” — the headliner is the throwdown between M and W — on the war of words.
And those words, especially when Bartlett is writing in M’s voice, are intricate and witty. In an unnecessary lie, John has told M that W is “manly”: when she’s arriving for dinner, M says, “I want you to know I’m expecting a yeti.” M also knows when John is lying and when he’s about to tell the truth: “Thirty seconds and counting. Here it comes.”
My biggest problem with Cock has always been that John is a frickin’ ditz who won’t take responsibility for his own behaviour or self-actualization. He claims he wants to grow up, but he really wants to be taken care of. As M says, “There’s so much emotional crap that orbits around you. You collect it like space junk.” Exactly. Who’d want him?
To his credit, Troy Mundle, who’s playing John in this streaming production and who produced it with Lee Tomaschefski (W), goes a long way towards mitigating John’s unlikability. M refers to John as a puppy and Mundle brings to the role golden-retriever earnestness and bafflement that help.
All of the performances are smart and, under the direction of Caitlyn Striker and Carmel Amit, the pace is snappin’. There are caveats: in a sex scene, Tomaschefski takes W into a porn version of femininity and W’s British accent fades as the evening progresses. But, ultimately, there’s a steeliness to this performance that works. I never entirely bought Nathan Witte’s queeniness as M, but his portrait is the beautifully nuanced and M’s accent — like the accent of his father F (John Prowse) — is stable. And the company keeps this thing spinning, damn it, which is a great credit to all of them. Making sense of this script requires mental and emotional alacrity and this cast delivers.
Directors Stryker and Amit also deserve credit for their approach to this online production. At least three camera people are circling the action at all times, which takes advantage of the medium and makes the play feel even more like a sporting event.
Lesson learned: be grateful that you’re living in 2021, when polyamory and fluidity of orientation are both clearly on the table.
COCK By Mike Bartlett. Directed by Caitlyn Striker and Carmel Amit. Produced by Troy Mundle and Lee Tomaschefski. Viewed on Tuesday, June 14. Available online until June 19. Tickets.
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