Cock
John has a boyfriend but he’s just met the girl of his dreams and he’s going to have to choose. Hearts are on the line and everyone’s ready for a fight in Mike Bartlett’s razor-sharp comic drama.
Cock premiered at the Royal Court in London in 2009 and won an Olivier award in 2010. Bartlett’s play on the ruthless pursuit of happiness has been an international sensation and is the seminal work from the writer of Doctor Foster, King Charles III and Love, Love, Love among many others.
In the words of Michael Billington, “Mike Bartlett’s play is a sharp, witty study of a man helplessly torn between his longtime male partner and a loving woman. Bartlett’s theme, in fact, is less tortured bisexuality than the paralysing indecision that stems from not knowing who one really is … Bartlett’s play examines, with clinical precision, what Schopenhauer once called ‘the tyranny of the weak.’“
Fortyfivedownstairs
30 January to 10 February 2019
Meat Market Stables
11 to 21 April 2018
Producer
15 Minutes from Anywhere (2019)
Baker’s Dozen Theatre Company (2018)
“With this production, however, director, Beng Oh, pares everything back. Completely. In doing so he navigates this terrain of young love with finesse and subtlety using nothing but his actors’ instruments and talent” – Theatre People
“It is evident that Oh has gained the complete trust of his actors. The minimalism of this production plus the in-the-round configuration allows it to triumph. “
Theatre People
“Director Beng Oh keeps the action so close to each character’s unknown emotional truth that, even if we don’t easily like them, it’s easy to find empathy and sympathy for them.”
Sometimes Melbourne
“In Beng Oh’s production the wonderful lack of props, and complete commitment of the actors to ‘being in the moment’ and in very close proximity to the audience, is exemplary.”
Stage Whispers
“From the get-go, Beng Oh’s direction of Mike Bartlett’s witty work is sharp and arresting.”
Theatre Press
“Mike Bartlett’s own notes in the forward of his text suggest that the audience should be raked down toward the actors, that there be no scenery, no props, no furniture and that the focus instead should be entirely on the drama. It’s evident that Director Beng Oh read these notes, then took a magnifying glass, passed the brightest of lights through it and torched his actors below like tinder.”
Australian Stage
WRITER
Mike Bartlett
DIRECTOR
Beng Oh
SET AND COSTUME DESIGN
Emily Collett
LIGHTING DESIGN
Andy Turner (2019)
Ashleigh Barnett (2018)
SOUND DESIGN
Tom Backhaus
STAGE MANAGER
Teri Steer (2019)
Ashleigh Barnett (2018)
PHOTOGRAPHY
Madeline Bannenberg
CAST
Matthew Connell
Scott Gooding
Shaun Goss
Marissa O’Reilly