Hannah Kurczeski, Contributing Photographer

Over the weekend, students gathered in the Underbrook — the Saybrook College theater — to watch a student production of COCK. 

First premiering at the Royal Court Theater in London, Mark Bartlett’s 2009 play COCK tells the story of John, a gay man who becomes conflicted after meeting and falling in love with a woman. Exploring themes of queerness, commitment and self-introspection, COCK pushes the audience to question what role sexual labels play in modern relationships, according to the performers. 

“The show is about defying labels of gender and sexuality,” Thomas Kannam ’26, one of the lead actors, told the News. 

The 90-minute production consisted of three parts, each presenting the story from a different perspective. The play featured four actors in total, allowing the audience to become familiar with the characters. AJ Walker ’26, who played John, remained on stage for the entirety of the show, while Emiliano Cáceres Manzano ’26, Bryce Valure ’24 and Kannam each took the stage during their respective sections of the play. 

The third and final section of the play brought together all the characters for a dramatic family dinner scene, including the protagonist, his male partner, his partner’s father and his girlfriend — the new love interest.

There were a total of three performances of COCK at Yale, all of which sold out. Kannam said they first came up with the idea for the show last spring while sitting on a bench with Walker. Walker and Kannam then recruited Cáceres Manzano and Valure to act and Ava-Riley Miles ’26 to direct. The group met several times over the summer and began rehearsals in September. 

While Bartlett originally wrote the female love interest in COCK as a cisgender woman, Kannam chose to portray the nameless character as transgender. Kannam said that this choice had important implications for dialogue about transgender individuals navigating relationships.

“When the play was written in 2009, the radical central claim was that sexuality is a spectrum,” Kannam told The News. “Today, that idea is hopefully less shocking to audiences, but discussions of gender fluidity are still very necessary. The transness of my character added nuance and depth to the love triangle.”

According to Cáceres Manzano, the show received funding through Benjamin Franklin College’s Creative and Performing Arts Awards. Established in 1986 to support creative and performing arts in Yale’s residential colleges, these grants are supported by the Louis Sudler Fund, the Welch Art Fund and the Bates Fund. Receiving the award meant that admission to the event had to be free for all Yale and local community members, which the performers said made the production more accessible. 

The actors never physically touched on stage, which Miles said emphasized the strained and forbidden intimacy that mirrored the show’s plot. 

“I hoped to show the audience that intimacy can exist and is sometimes even heightened without physical touch. Bartlett, the playwright, particularly calls for no props or miming but makes no mention of stage direction,” Miles said. “I felt that a lack of physical contact forced both the actors and the audience to really connect to the words, which are truly at the heart of the story.” 

This lack of physical contact required the actors to get creative while portraying sexual encounters. 

Leaning into the emotional elements of sex, the actors replaced physical touch with dialogue. In one of these scenes, Kannam and Walker sat several feet apart, acting out the scene on separate stools. 

“Sex scenes without touching initially seemed counterintuitive, but, to me, it made the moments feel more vulnerable and intimate. It underscored the emotional connection of our two characters,” Kannam told the News. 

The show concluded with a moving scene between Walker and Cáceres Manzano. As soon as the lights went out, the audience erupted in applause, showing their appreciation for the performance with an extended standing ovation. 

The Underbrook will be packed again this week, as another student production, “21 Chump Street” premiered on Nov. 9 and will run until Nov. 11.