When Michael Bartlett's play Cock was produced in New York in 2012, its title, by general mainstream media consensus, became The Cockfight Play. But the bowdlerized title actually is a more apt description of the play than its provocative official moniker. Staged arena-style around a sandpit in David Kasper's design, Bartlett's play is constructed as a series of face-off scenes in which a man and a woman alternately enter the ring to battle for possession of a third character. They are, in essence, in a fight for his cock.
New Conservatory Theatre Center is presenting the West Coast premiere of Bartlett's concise and compelling play, which helped establish Bartlett as a playwright on the ascent when it debuted in London in 2009 �" and where it was uncontroversially publicized as Cock. It also marks a high-street opening to NCTC's new season in director Stephen Rupsch's sharply staged production.
Bartlett has a background in radio plays (there are still such things in the UK), and that antecedent is recognizable in Cock. Costumes are street clothes that are never changed, props are nonexistent, and physical contact is indicated more in words than in realistic gesture. This austerity puts a premium on the words that Bartlett so tautly employs, though body language also becomes a key element in communicating the story of an unusual love triangle.
A gong is sounded to announce the start of each scene, and in the first, we meet a gay couple in a relationship that has obviously been fraying for some time. "You're a stream, and I want a river," the more assertive of the pair tells John, his partner and the only character given a name. In his tremulous freedom after a breakup, John meets a woman who seems to appreciate aspects of his personality that his boyfriend disparaged. "Some people might think you were scrawny," she says to him, "but I think you're like a picture drawn with a pencil, waiting to be colored in."
She knows he has recently left a gay relationship, and that John still thinks of himself as gay even as he finds growing comfort, both emotionally and physically, with this appreciative young woman. But before long, John is swinging his affections between his two lovers, culminating in a showdown where all three meet. The play goes a bit wobbly here, as the playwright drops the metaphorical battle-pit structure for an extended, more theatrically traditional scene that unnecessarily adds the boyfriend's father into the mix.
No answer to John's dilemma is provided, and while a case against sexual-identity labeling is suggested, this particular character's own quivering personality doesn't seem capable of withstanding any commitment that includes even occasional conflict. But in that weakness can still come an intriguing character, one that Stephen McFarland embodies in a vivid and ultimately heartbreaking performance.
As his boyfriend, Todd Pivetti effectively projects a sardonic steeliness against which John's easily pierced armor will always suffer. Radhika Rao, as the new woman in John's life, captures the character's seemingly naive seductiveness that disguises a steeliness of its own. Matt Weimar is fine as the boyfriend's father, a character whose purpose is perhaps to offer an older generation's view on the proceedings.
With Rupsch's incisive direction and a collection of confidently rendered characters, Bartlett's dialogue can be beguiling, funny, and like a slap in the face. Cock signals a playwright ready to enter the ring with a rope-a-dope bravado that makes one eager for the next round.
Cock will run through Oct. 12 at New Conservatory Theatre Center. Tickets are $25-$45. Call 861-8972 or go to nctcsf.org.