Writer: Mike Bartlett
Director: Katie O’Halloran
Performed in the stunning surrounds of the Boys’ School in Smock Alley theatre, Cock, Mike Bartlett’s 2009 play is an exploration of one man’s identity and the nature of relationships. Before the play begins, the atmosphere is expertly set with the choice of music that is played as the audience enters. The songs highlight the core of the play, that being the complicated nature of relationships. John, our main character, decides to break up with his long term boyfriend. A short time later he meets a woman who awakens an attraction he didn’t know existed, thus we are brought along as John tries to figure out just who he is and who he wants to be with.
There are four characters in this play, John, his boyfriend, his girlfriend and his boyfriend’s dad. John is the only fully named character in the play which truly highlights that it is him who we are supposed to be focusing on. Anxiety ridden John is talked at and to for most of the play. Seàn McManus does an exemplary job of making sure the audience knows exactly what John is feeling, even when he is not speaking. Joseph Ryan Warner gives a frenzied performance as John’s boyfriend. An intensely unlikable character for the most part, his treatment of John can be very difficult to watch. His determination to ‘win’ and keep John appears to be more about control than a desire to actually love and care for him. A character like this can be difficult to humanise, however Warner somehow manages to make the audience feel empathy for his character at points. Claire Gleeson plays the girlfriend in a gentle, loving and perhaps a little naive way. Her performance wonderfully highlights the contrast between the two people John finds himself caught between. Rounding out the cast is Padraic McGinley portraying the loving, protective father with sincerity. His character is used to highlight the social commentary in the play that although being gay is more acceptable than in his day, being attracted to multiple genders still has some struggles. He repeatedly tells John “You need to figure out what you are”. John eventually fights back on the idea that this requires a label rather than just choosing the person who makes him happier.
Directed by Katie O’ Halloran, the play is performed with no set or props. The stage space is expertly used throughout the play. The characters use their physical distances to portray where they are emotionally with each other starting with John sending his boyfriend to the other side of the room as a physical demonstration of the gap he feels between them. Another example would be during an intimate scene, the two characters stand on opposite sides of the stage before coming closer together as things heat up. Two characters talking about the sexual acts they are performing on each other while being far apart feels awkward to watch, but so is sex with a new partner for the first time. Especially heightened here with John having never slept with a woman before. Later the space is used to place John in the middle, and appears to try to meld with the wall, between his boyfriend and his girlfriend while they have ‘the ultimate bitch fight’ over him.
The humour in this play often lies in its lewdness and profanity which at times feels gratuitous and unnecessary. Towards the end of the play we are left watching John trying to make his decision between what is familiar and ‘easier’ with his boyfriend and the new, exciting relationship, with better sex, that he has found with his girlfriend. This play is an agonising portrayal of the struggle for identity and connection.
Runs Until March 8th 2025.
