Cock

by Mike Bartlett, Mark O'Thomas (Introduction)

Overview

But that's what this is, isn't it? The ultimate bitch fight.

When John takes a break from his boyfriend, his accidentally meets the girl of his dreams. Filled with guilt and indecision, he decides there is only one way to straighten this out . . .

Mike Bartlett's metrosexual play about love and longing provides us with questions of who we are and who we want to be. John's refusal to fix his identity disturbs and disrupts the lives of those around him in this contemporary tale of sex without nudity and struggle without violence. Mike Bartlett's punchy story takes a playful, candid look at one man's sexuality and the difficulties that arise when you realise you have a choice.

Cock premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, on 13 November 2009.

It is published here in the Modern Classics series, featuring an introduction by Mark O'Thomas.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781474229654
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	01/12/2017
Series:	Modern Classics
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	120
Sales rank:	991,056
File size:	406 KB

About the Author

Mike Barlett's debut, My Child (Royal Court, May 2007) saw him hailed by The Stage as 'one of the most exciting new talents to emerge in recent times'. He is a winner of the Old Vic New Voices Award for Artefacts (Bush Theatre). In 2009, his play Cock won the Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre, while Contractions was nominated for the TMA Best New Play award. Bartlett was Pearson Playwright in Residence at the Royal Court in 2007, and is currently Associate Playwright at Paines Plough. He has also written seven plays for the radio, including Not Talking for which he won the Writer's Guild Tinniswood and Imison prizes.

Mark O'Thomas is Professor of Theatre&Performance at Newcastle University.
Mike Bartlett is a multi-award-winning writer for both stage and screen. Theatre includes: Scandaltown (Lyric Hammersmith Theatre); The 47th (The Old Vic); Cock (The Ambassadors' Theatre/Royal Court); Mrs Delgado (Arts at the Old Fire Station/Theatre Royal Bath/Oxford Playhouse); Albion, Game (Almeida); Snowflake (Arts at the Old Fire Station); Wild (Hampstead Theatre); King Charles III (Almeida Theatre/Wyndham's Theatre/Music Box Theatre, New York); An Intervention (Paines Plough/Watford); Bull (Sheffield Theatres/Off Broadway/Young Vic); Medea (Headlong/Glasgow Citizens/Watford/Warwick); Chariots of Fire (Hampstead Theatre/Gielgud Theatre); 13 (Royal Court); Decade (Headlong); Earthquakes in London (Headlong, National Theatre); Love, Love, Love (Paines Plough / Plymouth Theatre Royal/Royal Court/Roundabout Theatre Company, New York/Lyric Hammersmith Theatre);Contractions (Royal Court/Crucible Theatre, Sheffield); My Child (Royal Court); Artefacts (Bush Theatre/ Nabokov);
Television includes: Life, Doctor Foster SE2, King Charles III, Doctor Foster SE1 (Drama Republic/BBC); Sticks and Stones, Trauma (Tall Story Pictures/ITV); Press (Lookout Point/BBC).
Mark O'Thomas is Professor of Theatre&Performance at Newcastle University, and has worked at the Royal National Theatre and the Royal Court Theatre in London as a translator of contemporary plays. His book on the Royal Court (co-authored with Professor Elaine Aston) was published in January 2015 and he continues to work on new writing for the stage in addition to publishing widely on translation and adaptation issues in theatre practice.

Editorial Reviews

A smart, prickly and rewarding view of sexual and emotional confusion . . . The writing is lubricious, sometimes grubby and in places savagely unpleasant. But it has a wounding authenticity. We laugh nervously, aware of its precision.” —Evening Standard

“Mike Bartlett has proved a devastatingly astute observer of adults behaving badly and this latest work is no exception . . . He is mercilessly accurate, wickedly funny and strangely touching.” —Financial Times

From the Publisher