Cockfight

Innovation and originality are all too rare in theatre these days. That’s why The Farm’s Cockfight is such a delight. But innovation without excellence would be an incomplete theatrical equation. Fortunately, the execution of this brilliant piece is equal to the concept.

The astonishing Gavin Webber tells the equally amazing Joshua Thomson, within the confines of their office personae, that a metaphor is a simple way of presenting very complex ideas - hence the cockfight, embodying the need of the Alpha male to be in absolute control, holding the power to protect or destroy. YetCockfight embraces far more than that one simple metaphor. Yes, it’s about male dominance and the desperation of losing it; but it’s also about the fragility of age – when experience can be discarded and replaced with youthful energy and bombast; it’s about the relationship between fathers and sons, brothers, workmates and even friends. There’s always a leader and a follower, so it’s also about hierarchy, and knowing (and accepting) that you are no longer the best, that someone else is younger, stronger, fitter, and the most your wisdom and experience will buy you is the right to leave (the family, the job, LIFE,) in your own time and on your own terms. In short, it’s about  survival - through the eyes of men. Ultimately, it’s also about the loneliness of that survival, the emptiness of success when there is no-one left to prove yourself to. Esoterically, this low budget, democratically created, piece of theatre incorporates high concepts that more mainstream theatre companies would be too terrified to explore. And the beauty of it is that they do so with incredibly comic overtones, and even slapstick shtick built into the structure. The poignancy reduces you to tears of heartbreak as well as tears of mirth.

Part Circus, part Mime, part dance, part parable and part The Office on steroids, Cockfight defies classification even as it commands suspension of disbelief.

The physicality of Webber and Thomson stretches far beyond dance, though both are brilliant dancers of innate strength and grace. Much of the “fight” itself is played in slow motion and is painful to watch, so intense is the physical exertion of the two. Muscles are distended as limbs are extended, two steel chairs become horns as old stag and young buck battle for power. Lifts, without any visible support, are held for minutes within a single second as time slows to a virtual stop. And when their business ties are knotted together and they drag each other around the office, the physical danger factor is very real, and you hold your breath hoping that neither of them is choked. It is simply amazing.

But it isn’t just Webber and Thomson - they are the conduit for the creative collective of  Luke Smiles (Sound Design) whose marvellous soundscape is perfectly nuanced and an integral part of the storytelling, from the choice of music to ambient sound (though I personally believe that Cat Stevens’ “Father and Son” was not the best choice for that moment); Mark Howett, who has created subtlety punctuated by outrageous bursts  of light to accent the shifts in the power game; and Julian Louis and Kate Harman, both of whom use their directorial sensibilities to shape the whole as even greater than the sum of its parts. That is a truly democratic process.

As with all great esoteric questions (Why are we here? Is there a Supreme Being? What is the nature of love?) there are no definitive answers given in this struggle. Is Josh’s action with the scissors one of compassion and altruism, or one of survival and selfishness? Perhaps it is both…or neither. There are no absolute truths.

You can take Cockfight as an enjoyable piece of physical dance theatre, or you can marvel at the layers of subtext and deep complexity in the struggle. I’m not sure that even the creative team itself understands the depth of what is happening. They are simply honouring The Gift, that intangible extra that is either accepted or rejected by those imbued with great ideas and talent, that they have honed with craft. Craft is simply the tools needed to release Art. As Michelangelo said of sculpting, “The statue was already in the marble…all I did was release it.” It’s something that comes from within …and without, and is only loaned to those who choose to acknowledge that they can perfect it, but never own it.

Every woman should see this show to understand to ultimate struggle to be “a man” as society conceives that role, even if you have no stomach for it. And every man should see it because they are, whether they accept the mantle or not, replicas of these two males of the species, and the struggle is real every day. It is remarkable theatre.

Coral Drouyn