Love and power mean winners and losers in ‘Cock’ at the Unicorn Theatre

Every now and then a jaded theater critic can stumble across a play so innovative in its approach to storytelling that the effect is like an open-handed slap to the face.

Mike Bartlett’s “Cock” is such a play — a one-act psychological pressure-cooker that deals with increasingly murky sexual politics between four characters who in the end will never be sure of their place in the world. Forget, if you can, the intentionally provocative title. Bartlett, one of the UK’s most interesting young playwrights at the moment, has crafted a piece he consciously strips down to its essence — writer and actors telling a taut, complex tale on a bare stage.

As the opening-night audience at the Unicorn Theatre suggested, Bartlett’s approach might not be for all tastes; someone behind me yawned audibly several times during the 90-minute performance, and I spotted a few drooping eyelids among viewers on the opposite side of the stage. But for theatergoers willing to make a mental and emotional investment, this show pays dividends.

At the center of the play is a character named John (Jacob Aaron Cullum), whose long-term relationship with his lover, identified in the script only as M (Zachary Andrews), is thrown into question when he meets a young woman (W, played by Molly Denninghoff), with whom he enters a sexual relationship.

Each of his lovers demands a decision and John finds himself in an ever-tightening emotional vise — although he complicates his situation considerably by lying to both M and W about his feelings for each. Yes, he may tell M, he loves him and that it’s only a matter of how to break the news to W, but he tells W something quite similar. Ultimately, it all gets settled at a dinner party — a high-stakes showdown that leaves all involved emotionally altered.

The resolution is driven in part by the appearance late in the play of a fourth character — F, played by Matthew Rapport — about whom I should say little in the interest in leaving the viewers guessing, which is clearly what Bartlett intended.

The members of the romantic triangle are all young professionals — or aspire to be — and Bartlett’s dialogue is tart, smart, catty and sometimes incendiary. Working under Jeff Church’s direction, Cullum, Andrews and Denninghoff capture performances that are nuanced and impressively detailed. The same can be said for Rapport.

Church and Alex Perry, who designed the set and lighting, adhere to Bartlett’s instructions to perform the piece without props or scenery and to avoid miming (a la “Our Town”). Church and his actors had to find ways to perform dinner parties without sitting and sex scenes without touching. The company deserves high marks for creative resourcefulness. Performed on a circular stage bordered by four sections of metal fencing, the production certainly achieves one of Bartlett’s goals — to suggest that viewers are watching a boxing match or, perhaps, a more lethal blood sport.

This strong production urges me to implore artistic directors in town to please, please produce more of Bartlett’s plays. He’s a singular talent.

This story was originally published April 26, 2015 at 2:42 PM with the headline "Love and power mean winners and losers in ‘Cock’ at the Unicorn Theatre."