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. [Read more…]
