The Melbourne Theatre Company’s latest play from Mike Bartlett, with music by Missy Higgins, deals with one young man trying to find his place in society via a homo-hetero love triangle.
John is at the breaking point of his seven-year relationship with M, a man. That’s when he falls for W, a woman.
MTC’s new play Cock is about one man just trying to find a place within the rigid lines of society.
John ends up with a lot on his hands as the two competitors for his love whirl around each other in a brightly coloured, ferocious flurry. This is more than your average love triangle; this is a brutal cock-fight.
After highly acclaimed performances in London and New York, Mike Bartlett’s play Cock is set to explode onto Melbourne’s theatre scene this week.
The production is only made up of four cast members. Tom Conroy plays the protagonist, John. Angus Grant plays M, the discarded lover. Tony Rickards is F, the father. And Sophie Ross is W, the womanly spanner thrown in the works of John’s life.
While the play is definitely cheeky, it is more challenging than shocking, according to Sophie Ross.
“Most of the audience at the MTC is from a generation where the labels of gay and straight were very liberating, were about positive identity,” she says.
“For our generation, labelling is another form of repression. Where does that need come from in humans? Why do we feel the need to categorise?”
The struggle that John has with these questions shapes the play, fuelling the tug of war between M and W, and creating something audiences haven’t experienced on stage before.
“Most love triangles we’ve seen in main stream drama have been heterosexual or homosexual, not the mix of the two,” says Ross. “It’s not just about his heart being attached to two people, it’s about identity. It’s a much bigger question. We’ve been grappling with this question for ten years, but not on stage.”
The audience is thrown between high surges of comedy and deep troughs of drama throughout the play. Confronted with the ache of three peoples’ heavily invested hearts, the play is bound to be moving. But ultimately, Cock will make you laugh.
“Mike Bartlett is very witty. It’s absurd, it’s kooky,” says Ross. “The intimacy and the sex is so honest, it’s funny. It’s awkward in the way that life is awkward.”
To accompany this complex movement between hilarity and heartbreak is original music by Australian artist, Missy Higgins. This is Higgins’ first time writing for theatre. The score is centred on one song she wrote, which was then cut up into snippets, phrases and chord structures that are used in different ways throughout the play.
“It makes it feel incredibly contemporary, because everyone knows her voice and she’s so Australian,” says Ross. “It’s really interesting because that places the drama in the here and now, hopefully people will feel absolutely in it and not so voyeuristic.”
To complement the music, director Leticia Cáceres has been working closely with set designer Marg Horwell to create a captivating set for the play.
The production in London was done on a completely bare set, but for the Melbourne show Cáceres has added a playful design element.
But Ross refuses to divulge more, saying “it’s too beautiful, I want people to see it for themselves”.
Settling somewhere in the middle of a furious animal fight to the death and a light-hearted romp between the sheets, Cock is bound to blow you away.
Cock shows at the Arts Centre Melbourne, Fairfax Studio, until March 22.
