Source: www.reforma.com
Translated by Heather

"Juan is a guy that lives through a stage of indecision. He thinks he knows what he likes (men), but he realizes that he also likes women, or at least one; and this brings him tremendous confusion."  - Diego Luna speaking about the play Cock

The love triangles where men come out of the closet, accept their homosexuality and leave a woman to go away with a man to return to matters of every day. But, in Juan's story, the character in the play Cock, the opposite happens.

In this staging, Juna (played by Diego Luna), the only character in the play that has a name, lives through a crisis in his relationship of years with H ("hombre" [man], played by José María Yazpik) and knows M ("mujer" [woman], played by Ilse Salas) for whom he feels a big attraction. What he plants in himself, and in the spectators, is the doubt of if he will continue his homosexual relationship or take another way.

"Generally, both in the homosexual world and in the heterosexual, one is stereotyped to one sexual preference. Then, the ambivalence that appears in this play is the new taboo to break," explains Antonio Serrano, the staging scenic director.

"The play has a cool thing, the framework that breaks is completely the other way around of what we call 'normal': it's a gay couple and the cause of their breakup is a woman," adds Diego Luna.

Both the cast and the stage manager agree that this comedy with tints of dramatic piece goes beyond showing the ups and downs of a homosexual relationship, lead by indecisive Juan. It tackles the identity crisis that a man faces, the vices that some relationships have, the fear and habit that usually paralyze as much a homo as heterosexuals.

"This does not mean this play is about bisexuality, although it appears. Rather it speaks about the sexual post-identity, because either as homo or hetero everything is assumed: there is the third, fourth, fifth option," says Serrano.

"There is a dialogue where Juan says 'Homo, hetero, gay, straight are already words of the 60's; we should go on to another thing.' Undoubtedly this is a play that speaks about human conflicts, that breaks with these conditioning factors," assures Ilse Salas, who plays the roll of the "other one" in the relationship maintained by the characters played by Luna and Yazpik.

The theatre performance - that will be released on April 15 at the Insurgents Theatre (in Mexico City) and whose tickets are already on sale to the public - explores the fractured relationship of Juan with H, the infatuation that he feels for M and the meeting of the three and one more guest at a dinner, explains Yazpik.

The drama beyond the sexes

Cock was written by English playwright Mike Bartlett, after an exchange of artistic residences brought about by the Cultural Hellenic Center, among artists from Mexico and the United Kingdom in 2008. A year later, the play was released at the Royal Court Theatre of London.

"I think it's a very young reflection, the writer is a friend raising a very contemporary debate," points out Luna.

Subsequent to his premiere in England, where it received good critiques and the Olivier award for best play of the year, Cock opened in Spain, Belgium and Malaysia.

"Mike Bartlett's play is a sharp and ingenious study about a man divided between his long time male partner and a beautiful woman," wrote Michael Billington in the British newspaper The Guardian.

Diego Luna was promoting Abel (2011), his first full-length film as director, in England, when he found out about the existence of this play and discovered that it had the elements he was looking for in order to return to theatrical production, experienced previously with El Gran Canario (2008) and Festen (2006).

"When I read it I noticed that it was the type of work that I wanted to do: I was looking for a comedy that talked about human relationships with certain depth, about love, about the search; out of few characters and would look for a closeness with the public," tells Luna.

Besides Luna, Yazpik and Salas, this Mexican version is provided with the performance of Javier Díaz Dueñas and will be playing only 12 weeks.

Too cocky?

A rooster fight in a wooden pen inspired Mike Bartlett to create Cock, that in English has two meanings: both rooster and penis.

Due to this, the stage where the odd love triangle develops departs from the local concept of where  rooster fights are carried out, in this case it acts as a wide gangway surrounded by armchairs.

"The space is more like an arena, like when you go to a wooden cockpit where you have the event happening in the middle and, somehow, a sensation of closeness and connection is created, not only with the play but with rest of the public. That's why we did it in this space that has three fronts, where there is also a constant battle," explains Luna.

The set design was done by Jorge Ballina, creator of spectacular structures with movement, such as a deep lake with floating nymphs (Rusalka opera, 2011) or  a revolving house of an English thriller (staging Sinister Games, 2010).

The curious thing is that in the original script of Cock, Bartlett suggests not to use scenery.

"The design that the author was indicating is too severe for a public who comes to the Insurgents Theatre. Respecting the essence of the script, we did a combination of a neutral space that turns into many things, with minimal possible elements, it is a minimalist proposal," says the director.