The world has at last caught up with what Cock’s central character calls the “stew” of sexual identity. First performed in 2009, Mike Bartlett’s comedy might have seemed edgy then but today it echoes and affirms notions around the slipperiness of sexual labelling.
Its hitherto gay protagonist, John (Jonathan Bailey), who lives with his long-term partner, M (Taron Egerton), triggers a three-way existential earthquake when he falls for a woman, W (Jade Anouka), and butts up against social expectations to define – or redefine – himself. “Gay”, “bi” and “straight” are bygone terms from the 1960s, John insists, but he nonetheless feels the pressure to place himself in one camp.
Bartlett’s dialogue still zings in its best moments and richly explores passion, relationship choices, cowardice and commitment. But the central angst-ridden axis of the play – the question of whether sexual identity is fixed and genetic or on a sliding scale in which choice comes into play – seems less of a conundrum these days.
Its edge now lies in its theatrical repackaging by Marianne Elliott in this boldly stylised revival – with mixed results. The play begins in hyperactive, puppyish mode; Bailey and Egerton are a double-act with their theatrical bickering and physical comedy. Their performances are amusingly arch but iron away finer switches in mood and feeling. When they settle, they conjure powerful moments. Egerton is especially affecting in his romantic desperation as he loses power in the relationship. Anouka brings fun and frothy comedy over anything more penetrating, although the chemistry on stage succeeds in seeming real. Bailey gives a strong performance, growing ever more unlikable until he is the spoilt, sullen child of the ending, but we never quite see what M or W find so lovable in this dithering, disrespectful player of a partner.
Merle Hensel’s set is both empty and claustrophobic in its bareness, with only a revolving door and a bench, along with school-hall strip lighting overhead (designed by Paule Constable). Our eye is led to every twitch and turn these characters make in this emptiness. Rather like the recent revivals of Lungs and Constellations, which have given a similarly forensic focus to a single relationship, it strips them down to the bone and accentuates their emotional nakedness.
This minimalism is accompanied by an overt, rather too cute theatricality – actors gesture at taking off their clothes, John swivels a shoulder in circles to represent the act of sex, M mimes in lieu of serving food when his father (Phil Daniels) arrives for the dinner-party showdown. It is a demand, however playful, for the audience to imaginatively engage, but it also seems as if Elliott has conceptualised a deeper meaning beyond our grasp. Is the play simply celebrating its own theatricality or is there more to it? The set’s mirrored walls bring a sense of interiority and the actors perform Matrix-like slow-motion choreography in between scenes that might reflect the emotional shifts in the relationships, but sometimes comes off as corny.
It all combines into a slightly mystifying non-naturalism that is at once flamboyant and no-frills. And where the theatrical tics in Elliott and Miranda Cromwell’s staging of Death of a Salesman gave the play an astonishing invention and power, the stylised elements here do not service this play’s meanings but seem like playful add-ons.
One of the most powerful scenes comes at the end, in John’s childishly sulky intransigence, and here Cock’s drama ultimately reveals itself not as a contest between heteronormativity and gay partnerships, or a play about the right to resist one fixed identity, but a far more old-fashioned love triangle with a selfish, destructive and cruel figure at its centre.
Cock is at the Ambassadors theatre, London, until 4 June
