Arts & Culture

What: Cock
Where: Artists Play Studio at Carlaw Industrial Complex, 388 Carlaw Ave.
When: Now, until Fri., Jan. 31
Highlight: Kathleen Black’s grungy production design
Rating: NNNN (out of 5)
Why you should go: An immersive staging of an intense script, brought to life with a marvelous ensemble cast

SINCE ITS U.K. premiere in 2009, Mike Bartlett’s Cock has ruled the roost as a penetrating interrogation of sexual identity, fidelity and aggression. It centres around John (Jakob Ehman), whose previously unquestioned faith in his homosexual identity is shaken by a charming meet-cute with a woman (Tess Benger), resulting in unexpected romantic feelings that complicate his relationship with the man he’s always loved (Michael Torontow). Neither of the romantic rivals is ever named in the dialogue, referred to in the script and program as W and M, respectively. Talk Is Free Theatre’s (TIFT) intense revival, directed by Dylan Trowbridge, graces Toronto’s east end with a confident swagger that knows how to satisfy.

This production’s coup (or coop?) de théâtre is undeniably its immersive staging in a grungy industrial space (production design by Kathleen Black), establishing a chilling semiotic dissonance when these surroundings are meant to stand in for a “very expensive home.” A bare bulb dangles above the room’s centre. The metal garage door through which the audience enters the space periodically rattles throughout the performance; it’s unclear if that sound is an intentional creative choice or the result of the drafty corridor outside, but it proves foundational to the ambience either way. The rectangular in-the-round seating configuration encircles the onstage action, though the actors spend much of their time in one of four seats that’s positioned in the middle of each row of spectators, like the railroads on a Monopoly board.

All of these details are poised to give the unmistakable impression of attending a cockfight, which isn’t necessarily unique to this production. Even the play’s Wikipedia page describes the third act as “reminiscent of a cockfight,” using four footnotes to evince that point.

Despite that comparison deriving so organically from the title, I’m a little sceptical that it’s really so fitting an analogy. How exactly is this dramatic scenario akin to a cockfight? The violence here is all psychic rather than physical. Its combatants are not all roosters, as it’s precisely the entrance of a hen that sets the conflict in motion. Moreover, I don’t believe cockfights typically involve a third participant for whose affections the other two are duelling. Fighting roosters probably have no personal stake in the action at all, being thrown into the ring by external forces beyond their control or comprehension. The staging’s intimate realism makes the audience’s gaze feel voyeuristic, rather than the event being orchestrated entirely for their amusement, to say nothing of gambling upon its outcome. To be clear, this critique is purely conceptual; experientially, the atmosphere that Trowbridge has conjured is spot on, even if the play’s animating metaphor is somewhat dubious.

Chin-stroking aside (for now), the other main reason to see this show is its marvellous ensemble cast. Ehman perfectly embodies all of John’s flaws and anxieties, from quivering like a frightened child in one moment to foaming at the mouth in the next. Torontow makes M’s complicated pain of betrayal remarkably legible, even while he tries so hard to be the strong adult in the room. Benger enters the scene as an adorkable inheritor of the manic-pixie-dreamgirl archetype but soon reveals more beneath the surface than that trope would usually imply. Kevin Bundy arrives late as a fourth character whose role is best left unspoiled, with the addition of his energy being a sheer delight. (It’s worth noting that Cock’s first preview was on the same day as the closing matinee of Mirvish’s Titanique, making this an especially impressive feat of stamina and gear-shifting for Torontow and Benger.)

There remains something a little curious about how the plot is only made possible by all of the characters collectively finding the concept of bisexuality virtually unfathomable. The word appears only once in the dialogue, shockingly close to the end, only to be flatly dismissed without any serious consideration. On one hand, we might chalk this up to 2009 apparently being ages ago, at least in terms of widespread understanding and tolerance toward diverse sexual identities outside the hetero/homo binary.

On the other hand, Bartlett seems to be pecking at a deeper philosophical query. What could have simply been a gendered twist on the familiar two-dates-to-the-prom sitcom setup is intensified by every character’s insistence that what’s at stake is less a matter of whom John loves and more a probing ontological question of who he is. The choice isn’t really about which complex individual he wants to be with but whether he’d prefer to be with M or W. Forget their rich characterizations; they might as well be stick figures on bathroom doors. In this Hamletian tragedy of indecision, John clashes with societal pressures to reduce his identity to sexual preference, with potentially self-obliterating effects.