Photo: Marnya Rothe
Despite the title, Cock is in many ways a conventional – and always fully clothed – play exploring the classic love triangle.
This time, though, the stable, domestic relationship is a gay one, between a stockbroker and his vague boyfriend, John, who is stranded on the cusp of adulthood. On a bus, John falls in lust/love, for the first time with a woman, a needy 28-year-old divorcee. Only a showdown dinner party between the three – and, unexpectedly, the stockbroker’s supportive father – prompts John to make his choice, sort of.
Dad tells John he must decide what he is, sexuality-wise, but true to this post-gay world with no labels, young John is still working on who he is. Cock treats us to some fast-paced clashes between a young man’s wandering into emotional and sexual freedom, and a man and a women clinging to certainties, logic, good sense – and John.
The delicious modernity of Mike Bartlett’s hit British play is the endless analysis which these anxious lovers bring to the intangibles of love. All is here brutally analysed; nothing is left unsaid.
Armed with secrets and vulnerabilities earlier shared, the three throw these back at each other as heavy artillery. Director Shane Bosher meets the challenge of keeping these wordy attacks as light but as true as possible.
While the clothes stay on, the props and furniture of a naturalistic theatre are here all stripped out. Just a row of white audience chairs encircle the stage, transforming the intimate Old Fitz theatre into a little bullring, keeping the focus only on the actors and their interactions.
Michael Whalley is perfect as the endearing if excruciating John, gloriously free but blind to the pain he causes. Matt Minto too is strong as the near hysterical, sometimes vicious (unnamed) stockbroker; while Matilda Ridgway purrs with neediness but is no kitten in the final fight. Her spoken-only sex scene with John is all delightful discovery. Brian Meegan has just stepped in as the father but, even now, delivers a suitably modern liberal widower ready to fight hard to keep John for his son’s happiness. The final Pyrrhic victory is heart-wrenching.
Red Line Productions has done well to translate this much travelled hit into their new home at Sydney’s Old Fitz, following its showing last year in Brisbane and Melbourne.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Red Line Productions and Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras present
Cock
By Mike Bartlett
Director: Shane Bosher
Lighting Design: Michele Bauer
Sound Design: Jed Silver
With: Brian Meegan, Matt Minto, Matilda Ridgway and Michael Whalley
The Old Fitz Theatre
129 Dowling Street Woolloomooloo
www.oldfitztheatre.com
3 February – 6 March
