Ambassadors Theatre, London – until 4 June 2022
Theatre has always been a place to explore identity by using different character perspectives to consider points of view, social structures or inherited notions of what an individual can and should be. In recent years, plays like Clint Dyer and Roy Williams’s Death of England cycle have questioned preconceptions about the singularity of national identities as well as the heavily gendered expectations of what being a working-class man means in a changing socio-political context.
Likewise, writers like Kyo Choi are investigating female identity as imposed by deep-rooted systemic bias in centuries-old patriarchal structures and how the individual is affected by sexual violence, while Joseph Charlton’s Anna X put identity itself under the microscope of social media filtering. So it is in this context of who gets to tell us who we are and are allowed to be that Mike Bartlett’s provocatively titled play Cock returns to the West End, a comic play about the interaction between personal and sexual identities that gives every sentence about it an unavoidable innuendo, directed by Marianne Elliott.
Elliott is arguably the only female director whose name alone will tell you everything about the style of work you are about to see. Other directorial superstars are, for now, all men – Robert Icke, Jamie Lloyd, Ivo van Hove (although Rebecca Frecknall is certainly on the rise here) – and Elliott’s work tends to have a grand narrative sweep, aligning the personal and the political at a given point in time. From Company to Angels in America and Death of a Salesmen, Elliott brings a visionary approach to innovation within the original text, able to rethink race and gender to offer fresh insights and application for existing works. Elliott combines this with a fine balance of scales that mixes the personal development and trajectory of individuals within the wider context of their lives, drawing conclusions both for the character as well as societies in general.
Cock is a far more intimate play and in bringing this production to life, Elliott retains a tight focus on the three central characters, an unusual love triangle that becomes a combat zone or cockfight. First performed in 2009, it remains as fresh and meaningful as ever as the protagonist, John (the only named individual in the play), struggles to either understand or articulate his sexuality while driven by the external insistence of his partners to make a defining choice either way. And Bartlett uses this to drive the drama across 105-minutes.
Cock is largely a chronological story that begins with a break-up when John chooses to end his relationship with his boyfriend – a difficult starting point for actors who need to keep something in reserve for the emotional complexities yet to come. Bartlett grows the story from there in a series of flash scenes, short sequences in which the original couple attempt a reconciliation and discuss the woman John slept with during their break. At this point, the audience has no reason to question the information that Bartlett provides through John or the extremes of sexual confusion to come.
Having introduced the scenario, what we believe are the two central characters and a subtle twist on the infidelity plot, Bartlett pulls an interesting switch, taking the audience very slightly back in time to see John’s first meeting with his girlfriend and the rapid development of their relationship. This sequence is much lighter – an important note for a compare and contrast discussion later in the play – that emphasises the humorous experience of John’s first sexual encounter with a woman and the continual attraction that he feels towards this unnamed partner known only as W.
But something has also shifted in the style of the play, so events or conversations we have seen before are referenced as well, providing new information to the audience. Bartlett has very slowly done two thigs here; first he has merged the timelines and almost without us realising has brought us out of the past and into a present that we recognise from the start of the play. And secondly, in doing so it begins to expose a number of lies that John has told in order to protect himself from the fallout. It is a risk to move away from the established scenario but one that brings both comic opportunity and character insight, creating a farce-like potential that dominates the decisive third Act.
In the final portion of Cock, Bartlett pulls a final switch as the three characters meet awkwardly – refereed by M’s dad – to resolve their dilemma. What could be a farcical climax instead becomes the cockfight of the title as M and W fight over and for John. The signs have been there throughout of course, guiding the audience towards this combative conclusion and each of John’s relationships has involved some form of conflict in the preceding scenes, building anticipation as the two halves of his life come together and create a pressure on him to make a decision about his romantic and sexual future. All three characters enter the arena on these terms, W and M certain that John will pick them while John flatters both that he will, and deceives himself that he is capable of a choice.
What makes Cock a classic contemporary work is how adeptly Bartlett manages the shifts of power and tension in this final encounter to underscore his detailed character study and the development of John’s nascent sense of identity, something so fragile and unformed he barely has the confidence to acknowledge it. But this final segment becomes crucial in cementing some form of purpose in John and, by setting up a direct choice between heteronormative values that will give him a wife, children and a dreamlike family Christmas, and a monogamous homosexual relationship with a man who rarely plans beyond the day, Bartlett exposes the impossibility of externally-imposed labels and the limitations of binary choices.
In a conclusion which has more than one interpretation, it is possible to see the tragedy of social expectation to know yourself and the sacrifices it demands. On the other hand, if you want to see it, Bartlett might also offer a flicker of hope that John may see an alternative resolution, that in the play’s final contemplative moment the deconstruction of John taking place throughout the dinner party scene has left something new behind that may take him somewhere else. Bartlett leaves the door to both possibilities ajar, allowing the actor and the audience to decide where John goes from here.
In staging Cock, Marianne Elliot stays true to the emotional character piece this is, setting it in a clinical stainless steel environment designed by Merle Hensel, that is part padded cell, part shiny Bond villain bunker that presents plenty of opportunity for refracted, distorted and tarnished reflections of self. So while the play text refers to furnishings and food, the anti-realist setting feels almost scientific, as though we are studying John in an antiseptic environment where emotion and his own personality are being eroded. Into this, Elliott introduces a couple of interesting devices, largely keeping the actors apart so the intimacy between them becomes something that is said but rarely seen except during some moments of sexual contact. Playing with distance has both a comic and dramatic effect that emphasises the different beats in the play and the extent to which John is feeling biologically-determined love or lust or both.
Elliott also uses a circular revolve on stage that responds to the confusion that John feels, as well as moments of excitement and slow-build tension; there are also movement sequences choreographed by Annie-Lunette Deakin-Foster that work against the clinical feel of the set to explore John’s inner experience, charting the messy complexity of his feelings for both people and the struggle to control and interpret those responses as a singular sexual preference. Often lit in Elliott’s trademark neon colours – pink, blue and green – by Paule Constable, these directorial choices take a very discursive piece about identity and creates a wider context of personal and social pressure that pushes back against notions of indecision through a forensic examination of John’s affairs.
Cock may be one of the only West End productions in which the star attraction at the beginning of the run may not be the same at the end of it and while Taron Egerton is the big draw here, the arrival of Bridgerton Season Two in a couple of weeks with its global audience of 82 million will renew interest in Jonathan Bailey’s reluctant Viscount, the focus of the new series, whose struggle with status and duty was the most interesting plot in Season One. Here, Bailey, a veteran of Elliott’s Company for which he deservedly won an Olivier Award for his memorable rendition of ‘Getting Married Today’, is outstanding in the leading role as the confused John whose sympathetic qualities are perfectly balanced with his selfishness and destructive impulses.
John can be a hard character to like and, for all his charm, he leaves quite a trail of emotional destruction in his wake. He lies, even manipulates both partners, placing his own happiness and contentment above theirs while giving in to his desires with little care for the consequences in the moment. Bailey also gives John a neediness that over time becomes almost pathological as he demands forgiveness, fulfilment and meaning from his partners without looking within himself. But Bailey is also controlled, balancing the emotional shape across the show by sparingly raising his voice to considerable effect as John loses his grip.
Yet, Bailey instils John with considerable pathos, building on this notion of his fractured identity and drawing out years of confusion and even maltreatment in his relationship with M that has repressed and stifled the creation of his own identity. The quest for self-understanding becomes incompetent accident rather than purposeful malice, disrespect or lack of love, and Bailey explores the fragility of John’s inner world, expanding the bewilderment and sadness of someone trying to make the pieces fit and failing. John can be awful but he is also awfully lonely.
Egerton by contrast plays a man who is much clearer in his view of himself and the relationship he thinks he is in. Often very funny, M has a spikey sarcasm that becomes domineering, developing a chemistry with Bailey that makes their long relationships believable. Egerton is still finding some of the timing and tone, particularly in the later scene, but he captures well the consequences for a character whose resilience is far less assured as John’s indecisiveness takes its toll and Egerton nicely charts the power shifts that undermine his confidence and stability.
Jade Anouka matches them, bringing a much stronger energy to the production through her own character’s rational but determined pursuit of John. Certain of her hold over him, W is a different kind of contrast to M, open to and liberal about John’s broader sexual past, willing to nurture his emotional development, but equally unphased by the meeting with M and, in Anouka’s charged performance, certain that not only does she have the stomach for a fight but that she will win it.
With Phil Daniels brilliant in the small cameo role of M’s intimidating father, this superb cast give a gripping and accomplished performance of a play that continues to fascinate and challenge. Whether identity is something that is externally imposed or comes from within, and if decisions about that even need to be made at at all, becomes a question fraught with confusion, but seeing this play is one choice that is very easy to make.
Cock is at the Ambassadors Theatre until 4 June with tickets from £20. Follow this blog on Twitter @culturalcap1 or Facebook Cultural Capital Theatre Blog
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‘Mike Bartlett’s play continues to fascinate & challenge’: COCK – West End
‘Mike Bartlett’s play continues to fascinate & challenge’: @culturalcap1 on @CockThePlayLdn, featuring a ‘superb cast give a gripping and accomplished performance’. At the #WestEnd’s @AmbTheatre. #theatrereviews #Londontheatre
‘@TaronEgerton is utterly at home in the theatre’: @lib_thinks on @CockThePlayLdn at @AmbTheatre. A timely #WestEnd revival of Mike Bartlett’s modern classic for #genderfluid times. ★★★★
