It’s time for John to stop letting M down (and standing him up and cheating and lying and failing and generally cocking things up), or so the 20something gay Brit’s lover informs him upon learning of his younger partner’s serious fling with a member of the opposite sex in Mike Bartlett’s provocative (and provocatively titled) dramatic comedy Cock, now getting an imaginatively directed, thrillingly acted West Coast Premiere at Rogue Machine.

 John (Patrick Stafford) and M (Matthew Elkins) could hardly be more mismatched, both as written and (even more particularly) as they are cast here, great big teddy bear M towering over the smaller, more lupine John and never failing to come up with a way to put his younger, more dependent other-half in his place.

It’s perhaps as much a bid for independence as it is one against codependency that transforms John and W (Rebecca Mozo) from casual acquaintances into lovers, though regardless of the reasons for their affair (calling it a fling would be to trivialize it), news of it throws M for a loop, and even learning that John’s female lover is “quite manly” (“What? Big hands? Shoulders? Penis?”) does little to reassure M that his relationship with John can ever be put to rights.

 What better way, then, for John and M to get everything out in the open than to invite the manly young woman over for dinner, though once W has arrived, petite and with cleavage to spare, all bets are off, the subsequent arrival of F (Gregory Itzen), the father of one of them (though I won’t reveal whose), making for one tantalizing dîner à quatre.

Playwright Bartlett has left just about everything up to director Cameron Watson and his cast of four to figure out, giving them dialog and nothing else—no character descriptions, no scene-setting, no stage directions, nada. Bartlett even goes so far as to mandate “no scenery, no props, no furniture, and no mime,” quite a challenge indeed, but one that director and actors are more than up to.

Press materials redubbing Cock “The Cockfight Play” for namby-pamby “family media” do at the very least hint at Watson and company’s approach, scenic designer Stephen Gifford’s bright, grass-green (or is it jealousy-green) cockfight ring encircling the cast’s attack-and-parry moves, spectators almost as brightly lit as combatants.

 Scenery, props, furniture, and mime prove unnecessary as director and cast do indeed (per the playwright’s instructions) place “the focus … entirely on the drama of the scene.”

Cock offers no heroes to root for nor villains to hiss but instead three very human combatants in a battle for happiness and love, and neither Stafford nor Elkins nor Mozo shy away from revealing their characters’ less attractive aspects, leaving it up to us to determine for ourselves just who is right for whom.

It’s also up to the audience to figure out John’s sexuality even as our hapless hero himself attempts to understand his sudden, unexpected interest in someone of the female persuasion while worrying that there might “come a moment when I’m missing his cock … like a world-class tennis player who gets to the final but had broken the racket he’s always ….”

Provocative stuff indeed, and a sign of our times that a “gay play” like Cock has been programmed into a “mainstream” season, though Rogue Machine has never been prone to opt for the safety of the conventional.

Barlett’s insistence on minimalist staging at once frees, challenges, and inspires director Watson and his cast to  focus on the drama (and comedy) of each scene while letting our imaginations fill in the scenery, props, furniture, and mime. (Cock may well be the first play in which not one but two nude scenes take place with the actors fully clothed.)

Without physical descriptions, Bartlett leaves it up to the director and casting director determine the look of each character, and here Watson and Victoria Hoffman have made one very daring choice.

 Yes, Stafford’s John has very much the same ethereal quality that West End original Ben Whishaw and off-Broadway’s Cory Michael Smith brought to the role, a look that suits the still malleable protagonist to a T, and some decidedly unglamorous bangs (what the English call “a fringe”) help Mozo give W an average-London-Jane look that one might imagine for a girl John often crosses paths with on his way to work.

Where Watson and Hoffman take chances is in casting the “unexpected Quaid” (a young Randy as opposed to the more obvious 30something Dennis) as M, a decision which adds intriguing shadings to the couple’s opposites-attract relationship.

 Three-time Best Lead Actor Scenie winner Stafford’s mesmerizing performance as John matches his previous star turns in Equus, Amadeus, and Red. (Clearly one-word titles pay off for the Boston Conservatory grad.) John may not have things figured out in his life, an uncertainly that Stafford makes heartbreaking real, but Stafford the actor is most definitely in control, commanding attention even when others are taking charge or attempting to do so.

 Following the pair of dissimilar but equally complex fathers he brought to life in A Bright New Boise and Falling, Elkins’ performance as M proves the Rogue Machine staple the very definition of versatility as a different kind of Daddy, fearlessly revealing M’s warts-and-all, and the vulnerability beneath the bravado.

 I’ve now seen Mozo in a grand total of seventeen starring roles since 2005’s Pera Palas, and with four individual (and three ensemble) Scenies on her wall, there is no busier or better young stage actress in town that than director Watson’s frequent partner-in-crime. Here Mozo is sexy, sassy, and once again sensational as a woman bent on straightening out her man no matter what.

 Completing the mix is Itzen’s equally fabulous F (whose attitude proves as surprising as it is refreshing), a man whom societal changes have evolved in unexpected ways, and a role brought to dynamic life by the stage-and-screen vet.

Director Watson’s in-the-round staging (and Jared A. Sayeg’s vivid lighting design) make the audience not just observers but virtual participants in Barlett’s tangy roundelay, and if at times one actor blocks another or we miss out on a face in a particular scene, these moments are relatively short-lived as characters remain ever in motion in their cock-and-henfight for love.

Kate Bergh’s costumes are savvily chosen given that each character gets only one. Christopher Moscatiello’s sound design is a striking one, particularly the whoooooosh that connects each scene with the next. Dialect coach Nike Doukas gives Barlett’s characters the kind of un-posh accent that seems to be the norm these days in England. Not surprisingly, this is one play without a properties designer, master, or mistress.

Britt Hennemuth is assistant director. Amanda Mauer is production manager, David Mauer is technical director, and Ramón Valdez is stage manager. Cock is produced by John Perrin Flynn, Elkins, and Laura Hill. Justin Okin is associate producer.

With a title like Cock, I can’t help pitying reviewers forbidden from calling Cock Cock. Cocks certainly don’t come any more mouthwatering than this one, and with Monday performances offered in addition to those on Saturdays and Sundays, this is one Cock no lover of exciting L.A. theater can possibly refuse.

Rogue Machine at Theatre/Theater, 5041 Pico Blvd., Los Angeles.
www.roguemachinetheatre.com

–Steven Stanley
September 15, 2014
Photos: John Flynn

Tags: Los Angeles Theater Review, Mike Bartlett, Rogue Machine