By Mike Bartlett. Directed by Stephen Drover. A Rumble Theatre production. At Performance Works on Friday, October 30. Continues until November 8

Cock is hard—by which I mean the play is difficult. It’s also fun.

In Mike Bartlett’s script, a young guy named John is in a relationship with M, an older man. John leaves M, then, to his surprise, he has sex and falls in love with W, a woman. John goes back to M, but continues to declare his devotion to W. Then the characters do what characters in plays often do, and no one ever does in real life: they decide to sort things out over dinner. John is the prize. By the end of the evening, he must decide who gets him. Fearing that John and W will form a common front, M invites his father, F, to bolster his team.

On opening night, there was about a 20-minute stretch off the top of Cock in which the theatre was as electric as if it were the site of a high-stakes sporting event. John fights for his right to know himself, in all his fluidity, but M and W insist that he choose between living as either gay or straight. And M is an archetypal gay bitch, so the dialogue gets pretty funny—albeit misogynistic. Unable to contain his disdain for female sexuality, M refers to W’s “considerable marshland”.

But it’s hard to sustain the idea that two sane, articulate people would stay interested in John. As W tells him, “There’s so much emotional crap that orbits around you. You collect it like space junk.” Because John is unable to set the terms of his own self-exploration, he’s swayed by every argument and will say almost anything to anybody to keep them onside.

This passivity makes the role hugely challenging for actor Nadeem Phillip, who is clearly gifted. Off the top, Phillip’s performance is charmingly responsive, but, as the evening progresses, Phillip leans so heavily into a puppy-dog persona that you can’t help but feel tempted to take John back to the SPCA.

Playing M, Shawn Macdonald was mannered off the top on opening, but he settled into a performance of affecting depth. And Donna Soares finds much of W’s sexiness and savvy. Still, it’s a revelation when Duncan Fraser arrives as F. Fraser plays the part with such effective understatement that I found myself going, “What’s that human being doing on-stage with all of those actors?”

Still, the play’s discussion of identity is compelling, and the staging—which, in line with the playwright’s directions, involves no set, furniture, or mime—is audacious. There are plenty of successes in this production. So go ahead, take this Cock.