STAGE REVIEW : Some Fancy Footwork in Boxing Saga

There are lots of levels on which to take “Cock & Bull Story” at the Fountainhead Theatre, starting with the title. Not just the obvious phrase as a whole, but even the two words that characterize it.

“Cock & Bull” is a dissertation on male bonding, sexuality and the meaning of friendship in two short acts as indirect as they are predictable. All that differentiates this locker-room play from so many others (“The Changing Room,” “The Nonsense,” “That Championship Season,” a living-room play with a locker-room mentality) is the quality of the writing and, at the Fountainhead, the excellence of the production.

Written by Richard Crowe and Richard Zajdlic (who also performed it at London’s Lyric-Hammersmith), “Cock & Bull” is based on a series of improvisations they recorded to investigate the nature of masculine identity. The results are impressive, even if the two-hander, smartly directed here by Billy Hayes (co-author of “Midnight Express”) and performed by Londoners Trevor Goddard and Mark Sheppard, remains a challenge to follow in the authentic but often impenetrable East London accent they correctly adopt.

It’s not clear how you solve the elocution problem, but the production’s body language is at once subtle and abundantly clear, making the play’s themes visually, if not audibly discernible.

Travis (Goddard) is a sweet-natured amateur boxer whose imminent bout in a small provincial town in the south of England will determine if he makes it to professional standing. His “mate” Jacko (Sheppard) is deeply conflicted about matters he hesitates to discuss. Chief among them are reports that Travis gets aroused during his boxing clinches (which makes him sexually suspect)--and his own violent reaction to any number of ramifications stemming from that unsettling possibility.

Act I is all banter, bragging and anticipation, as the fighter and his friend rev up the engines of expectation before the match.

Act II, after Travis emerges victorious from the bout that will propel him to London, takes a much darker turn. Jacko admits to having killed some gaybashers who were calling Travis a homosexual by much cruder names. Now hiding from police, he turns his uneasiness against his friend, taunting and testing him.

The results are at best ambiguous, and one of the play’s real strengths is that all of the questions raised in the guise of vociferous protestations--including the crucial one of the nature of Jacko’s attraction to Travis and vice versa--remain wide open. The piece takes on broader dimensions for refusing to pin itself down. The impression we are left with is that anything is possible and that the men are being as cruelly manipulated by their own socially acquired homophobia as by the impulses that fuel their libido.

Goddard, who had a brief career as a boxer before turning to acting, is a handsome, amiable guy with bulging biceps whose power is more playful than menacing as the naive, well-meaning Travis.

Sheppard’s Jacko, on the other hand, is perpetually dangerous, restless and ripped apart by his uncertain sexuality and his indeterminate love of his friend. He is barely in control, spooked by the violence of his recent actions and even more fearful of his less explosive inclinations. The voltage between the men is as high as any that courses between power poles and a lot less insulated.

Hayes has staged “Cock & Bull” with a boxer’s footwork and agility, and the intimacy that a locker room invites. But under the free-wheeling banter lies some precision work. As the worm turns in the second act when Jacko confesses to the murder of several men and confronts Travis with his own fears and revulsions, layer upon layer of nuances come peeling off the mutable, complex characters.

It is this high degree of uncertainty and the volatile mood of the piece (reminiscent of John Godber’s “Bouncers” and some of Steven Berkoff’s macho male-bonding plays) that lend it more than passing interest.

A cautionary note: While never gratuitous, there is some nudity and plenty of expletives in the production that dialects, no matter how thick, do not disguise.

* “Cock & Bull Story,” Fountainhead Theatre, 1110 N. Hudson, Hollywood. Thursdays-Sundays, 8 p.m. Ends May 17; $10. (213) 962-8185. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.

‘Cock & Bull Story’

Trevor Goddard: Rupert Travis

Mark Sheppard: John (Jacko) Foster

Mary Dryden: Woman’s Voice

A presentation of the Fountainhead Theatre Company and Bailey Hayes Productions. Producers R.S. Bailey, William Hayes, Steven Adams. Director Billy Hayes. Associate producer Jackie Davis. Playwrights Richard Crowe, Richard Zajdlic. Scenic design and lights Bailey Hayes Productions with Gregory Van Horn. Stage managers Christopher Affrey, Melissa Brockman.

BACKGROUND

Directing “Cock & Bull Story” is Billy Hayes, 45, who is best known as co-author of the novel “Midnight Express,” about his experiences in a Turkish prison. The 1978 film starred the late Brad Davis. Hayes has directed two other prison dramas, William Inge’s “The Last Pad” in Los Angeles and Rick Cluchey’s “The Cage” in New York.