Theatre in Review: " " The Cockfight Play (The Duke on 42nd Street)

Certainly the new production at the Duke on 42nd Street doesn't lack for attention-getting stratagems. First of all, there's that title, which we dare not mention in the headline, for fear of sending thousands of our email newsletters into spam filters. (The formulation used above is a helpful suggestion from the show's press agent.) Just for the record, it is Cock, a title that seems chosen more for its shock value than its relevance to the action on stage. There's also Miriam Buether's set design, which, in effect, creates a dedicated theatre in the form of an arena with bleacher seating. There is no scenery as such; the actors occupy the tiny playing area, as often as not circling one another, speaking lines that refer to eating dinner or making love without any accompanying physical actions. A stage manager sits on the first level with a script, a watch, and a tiny bell, which is rung to indicate scene breaks.

And there's the plot, in which the author, Mike Bartlett, is determined to push as many hot buttons as possible. John and M are lovers, but their relationship is on the rocks. M, who is older and has a successful career as a trader, is seriously getting on John's nerves. (We never learn what, if anything, John does for a living.) Given M's way with endearments -- he describes John's upper limbs as looking like "satellite dishes at the end of fishing rods" -- John may have a point. In any case, when, after a few minutes of comic bickering, John simply says, "It's not working," a stunned silence follows; a truth, hidden in plain sight, has been identified, leaving both men momentarily paralyzed. This is only the first time that, thanks to a brave cast and moments of incisive writing, the action will suddenly reverberate with the shock waves set off by simple, honest words.

John disappears, then reappears a couple of weeks later, bearing such dubious gifts (a teddy bear) and statements of devotion ("I whack off to you every night") that M smells a rat. And, to put it mildly, it is a whopper; John has taken up with a woman but he isn't entirely happy about it. "You want your boyfriend's help with the woman you're sleeping with?" asks M, with disbelief. John insists that the woman is "manly" and something of a stalker, but, in the flashbacks that follow, we see that the woman, W, is nothing of the kind. She's pert, pretty, and possessed of a mind of her own; a divorcee in her late 20s, and more than a bit lonely, she falls into conversation with John, who bares his boyfriend problems. One thing leads to another, and, in one of the play's trickiest scenes -- performed with brio by Cory Michael Smith and Amanda Quaid -- the two make exploratory love. (Bartlett is especially good at capturing the partners' only partially submerged anxiety. Surveying her anatomy, John says, "It's quite nice." "Like a TraveLodge, you mean?" responds W, clearly on edge.)

"Some people might think you're scrawny," says W. "But I think you're just like a drawing that has only been penciled in." W doesn't know how right she is, as John, who cannot make a decision about his sexual identity, vacillates between the man and woman in his life. This leads to the highly dubious plan for all three to have dinner together. (M thinks W is going to get the heave-ho; W believes the opposite.) Just to mix things up a bit more, M invites his father, F, to kibitz.

This thoroughly artificial development marks the point that a heretofore sharp-eyed comedy of modern manners becomes a maze of contrivances, divorced from any psychological reality. "Him and me, we must both be stupid," says W to John. "What is it about you?" Well, yes, and in spite of Smith's tremendous skill at carrying out John's ever-shifting alliances, it becomes harder and harder to believe that M or W would waste their time on this human vacuum. Their mutual obsession with him suggests that both suffer from darker problems, about which the script is largely silent. As it becomes clear that the dinner is not what either expected -- that, in fact, John is using it as a kind of elimination competition -- you wonder why both M and W don't simply walk out. M does, but W coaxes him back, saying that neither of them will have any peace unless John makes a decision. This is the point where Cock becomes a drama about a playwright trying to write himself out of a corner.

Jason Butler Harner captures every one of M's mixed emotions, his sneering affection, terrified sarcasm, and guarded devotion. He can take a simple line -- announcing that he, W, and John are going to enjoy "a full and frank discussion" -- and make it sing with irony. Quaid's W is, at least at first, nobody's fool, and combines an appealing warmth with considerable emotional armor, but when, turning very quiet, she says, "I thought you had made your decision, John," your heart may break, just a little. As F, Cotter Smith has a slightly shaky British accent, but he brings a sweet reason to the proceedings that makes the otherwise hard-to-swallow final third go down much easier. ("This is what we used to call conversation. It used to be popular," he says, trying to paper over an evening marked by emotional warfare.) The director, James Macdonald, never settles for anything less than total honesty -- from his cast, anyway.

Buether's set is a clever concept and her costumes feel right for the characters. Peter Mumford's lighting design bathes the playing area in chilly white light and covers the audience in a warmer wash; there is one light cue only, at the final blackout. Darron L. West is listed as sound designer, but I'll be darned if I know what he contributed to the production -- possibly, he acted as an acoustical consultant on the set design, but this is just a guess.

With its sneakily subversive view of gay relationships and its brittle, battle-ready dialogue, Cock is the kind of play that sends the audience to the nearest bar, where they can argue about it far into the night. Anyone who can do that is clearly a talent to watch. Next time, however, I'd like to see characters who can fully embody the author's agenda. --David Barbour