Mike Bartlett’s Cock at Studio Theatre

It’s a relief to be retired from the meat market after seeing Cock, the pugilistic, punch-drunk comedy by British playwright Mike Bartlett about relationships and shifting identities that sears you with snark while ripping your heart out.

Watching the gladiators in this love triangle go at it balls to the wall makes you want to delete that Zoosk account and take comfort in the fact that you never need to date again. Aloneness—bring it on!

In set designer Debra Booth’s evocation of a Spartan arena, glaringly lit by florescent lights, three people peck and claw through this raw examination of power plays, the mystery of attraction, sexual orientation and responsibility. Given the savage tenor of the performances, sharpened by David Muse’s forceful direction, it is amazing that the sand is not slick with blood and the odd eviscerated organ by curtain call.

An electric “beep!” starts each round. First up is John (Ben Cole), a young man with a maddening allergy to commitment, who sorta-kinda-coulda-woulda-shoulda breaks up with his long-time boyfriend, called M (Scott Parkinson, elegantly lacerating as the poised older lover).

This lasts three weeks. In the interim, John has a “thing” with a woman known as W (Liesel Allen Yeager, playing W as a magnetic combination of femininity and frankness). The encounter turns John’s head around—in the snarly words of M—like something out of “The Exorcist.”

“Love. Mad. SHE?” M says, in one example of the spotless economy of Bartlett’s terse dialogue. You see, John has returned to his lover not just because he misses him, but because he wants M’s help in sorting it all out.

From the get-go, you get the impression M gargles every morning with cyanide, so you just imagine his response to John’s request. He lets fly a strutting spew of invective that evokes everything from Disney and “High School Musical” to gay culture and an insultingly hilarious salute to nicknames for female private parts.

Yet in the end, M forgives. But John cannot forget W. We see his fascination for her and can understand why. In many ways, they are mirror images of one another—pretty, fresh-faced, chatty, full of “sorrys” and identical flappy hand gestures and crossed arms. She lays out a future for him like a Persian carpet—home, family, children, romantic roaming in Paris.

M proposes that W come to dinner and she accepts. Both believe that John has made a decision in their favor. The initial awkwardness and awfulness factor of M and W’s meeting—the two trade barbs like divas bitching about billing—ratchets up a few notches when M’s father F (Bruce Dow) arrives, ready to defend his gay son and his lifestyle against this interfering hussy.

Who is the victor? It is Pyrrhic at best, since John cannot decide on anything and has no idea who he is—except a trophy to be fought over. Some prize, huh?

As John, Cole makes shilly-shallying practically an art form—he’s at once exasperating and endearing. You can see why M and W covet him—his power lies in his absolute formlessness—and you empathize with his plight. Can you love a man and a woman at the same time? Do you have to choose? Is sexuality fluid and changeable or is it a declaration, a cultural movement?

The argument for both is compellingly expressed in twin scenes where M and W walk around John in a slow circle and gives each one a long, discerning gaze. The intimacy of these scenes astonishes with its naked honesty—no nudity, just John’s appreciative smolder, the words he uses to describe their bodies and sex, and their keen reactions.

Cock is all about being pressed to make a decision about who to love, but this is presented so provocatively you wonder—why? Maybe John’s wishy-washiness is not a character flaw but a reaction to a society that demands you tithe to one camp or the other because your whole identity is tied up in whether you are homosexual or heterosexual. Is it possible to just be sexual?

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Cock by Mike Bartlett . Directed by David Muse . Featuring Ben Cole, Bruce Dow, Scott Parkinson, and Liesel Allen Yaeger . Set design: Debra Booth . Lighting design:  Colin K. Bills . Costume design: Alex Yaeger . Sound design: James Bigbiie Garver . Dramaturg: Adrien-Alice Hansel . Produced by Studio Theatre . Reviewed by Jayne Blanchard.