Despite the importance of the sexual relationships no one ever removes their clothes. If the actors wear anything other than ordinary street clothes, we hear about it from the dialogue. While Buether is also credited as costume designer, there are no costumes and, except for the elaborate restructuring of the theater, there are no props. Overhead is a large lighting fixture matching the wood of the wall and seats from which Peter Mumford throws a bright light on the actors. Within that wall five rows of bleacher benches surround a small circular stage, its floor painted green. A circular, pale wood wall surrounds the theater which usually has an open stage with raked orchestra seating and a small balcony. The battle to make the indecisive about everything John (he even has difficulty deciding what to wear) to commit to one or the other of his lovers does indeed have all the earmarks of a cockfight - or, as M puts it "the ultimate bitch fight."Īs Macdonald had Eugene Lee transform the New York Theatre Workshop auditorium into a medical operating theater for Caryl Churchill's A Number, he had Miriam Buether, who also designed the London production, reconfigure The Duke to establish the look and atmosphere of a cock fighting arena. James Macdonald, who directs in New York as he did in London, has again created a tense, fast moving production. That's not to say the writing is derivative, for Bartlett is very much a playwright with his own distinctive voice. Her being a woman exacerbates the M/John crisis and takes the sexual identity issue into more universal territory anyone can identify with: Getting in touch with what type of person one wants to be and deciding how and with whom to best achieve contentment.īartlett's smartly structured script, with its incisive and often quite funny dialogue has elements of Harold Pinter's Betrayal and the word play that peppers Tom Stoppard's work. The more vulgar slang terms come into play through the sexual relations between M and John but between John and W (Amanda Quaid). ![]() Even the plumbing related definition ties in with the domestic details of M and John's relationship. The bullets to be released by the symbolic firearm's cock or hammer are words - precise, smartly character and situation defining words. The roosters are M (Jason Butler Harner) an John (Cory Michael Smith), a pair of male lovers whose 7-year relationship is in crisis. However, Bartlett's play touches on every one of the above listed dictionary definitions for that 4-letter word. The Playbill cover features an image to illustrate one definition for that possibly titillating or off-putting title. A cockfight is indeed an apt metaphor for Mike Bartlett's Olivier Award winning dramedy about the battle for one man's affection by his long-term and new love. Time and ticket sales will tell if the play's provocative title, clever structure and the fascinating if somewhat gimmicky staging will make this the theatrical event in New York that it was in London.įor theater journalists whose publications might consider Mike Bartlett's Cock to have a title that dare not speak its name in print, the press agents suggested referring to it as The Cockfight Play. While such cast changes don't always work to a play's advantage, this is a well chosen quartet whose Britspeak is better than acceptable. Same director and physical production but an American cast. Jason Butler Harner and Cory Michael SmithĪ much buzzed about British play has landed at the Duke on 42nd Street.
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