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| Joshus Thomson and Gavin Webber in Cockfight |
Cockfight.
Directed by Kate Harman., Julian Louis, Gavin Webber, Joshua Thompson. Performed by Joshua Thompson and Gavin Webber. Directed by Kate Harman, Julian Louis, Joshua Thomson and Gavin Webber.. Lighting design by Mark Howatt. Lighting realiser. Chloe Ogilvie. Sound design. Luke Smiles. Set design. Joshua Thomson. Produced by The Farm in association with NORPA and Performing Lines. The Playhouse. Canberra Theatre Centre. September 26 2018.
Reviewed by Peter Wilkins
Anyone who has ever suffered the
slings and arrows of outrageous office politics will identify with The Farm’s
ingeniously staged Cockfight. Part dance, part circus, part sitcom and totally
revelatory in its perceptive analysis of the human condition at its most
ambitious, protective, devious and ruthless The Cockfight is the blood sport of
upwardly mobile and the fight to the death of the assailed incumbent. The
marketing hype describes Cockfight as “The Office on steroids”. Its physicality
is breathtaking, gravity defying and perilously teetering on the precipice of
physical and psychological injury.
Gavin (Gavin Webber) has been
secure in his tenure as a middle management official, with a specialized
knowledge of the migratory habits of the Mutton Birds who migrate from the northern
regions of the globe on their arduous journey to the breeding grounds of Australia
and Antarctica . It is a metaphor for the self-fulfilling life of the public
servant, an inescapable analogy for any who have embarked on the precarious
scaling of the APS ladder.
Josh (Joshua Thomson) is the new
kid on the block, clean-cut, well dressed, conservatively groomed and ready to
assume the master’s mantle. What follows is a battle of brawn and brain, wile
and wildness, and ambition versus tradition. Set within Joshua Thomson’s
purposefully conventional office design, the show opens with Gavin, securely
seated at his desk as Luke Smiles’ sound design captures the tension building
tones of a B Grade horror thriller.
Gavin’s secure and confident world is about to be shattered by the arrival of
the young trainee with ambitious designs.
A mood of suspended anticipation
swiftly turns to a power play of manic proportions. Familiar office items
become the weaponry of supremacy as objects are rearranged with lightning
dexterity, bodies intertwine in mortal combat, tables are upturned, doors slammed,
a filing cabinet overturned and bodies dragged by neckties around the neck. The
irony of Cat Stevens’s Wild World is
inescapable as Gavin lies vanquished and Josh emerges the victor. It is inevitable that in the cockfight there
will always be the winner and the loser, and the old dog cannot learn the new
tricks, but in a moment of sombre contemplation, who will play the old dog next
time.
Cockfight discards text in favour of physical interaction. The show
bears the hallmarks of rehearsal room improvisation, refinement and quicksilver
choreography. The timing is masterful, the trust laudable and the intention precise
and expertly executed. Webber and Thomson marry dance with drama, slick comic
timing with skilfully choreographed stillness and motion and moments of comedy
and pathos with hesartstopping possibilities of danger. The Farm and the Northern
Rivers Performing Arts (NORPA) have collaborated to create a work that is
original, insightful and thoroughly entertaining. At seventy minutes without an
interval, it is slightly repetitive and some sequence could be abbreviated, but
this had no effect on the audience’s rapturous appreciation of the two performers’
remarkable skill to survive the thrust and parry of power play politics in the workplace.
I understand that this one night
stand was the final performance of Cockfight after its long run.so there is
little to be gained by urging readers to rush for their tickets. But, if it
should be revived in this renowned public service town, be sure to be the very
first in line…whatever it takes!
