… Not Much of It and What There Is, Not Very Gay

Sometime last year — I swear this is a true story — a friend of mine hailed a taxi to go to a local theatre and was met by a tirade against the alleged homosexual domination of Sydney theatre. At the time three plays with strong homosexual content, Torch Song Trilogy, The Cobra and, more ambivalently, The Kid, were playing in Sydney, plus at least two plays by homosexual authors, Coward’s Blithe Spirit and Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. I never learnt just what had raised the ire of this particular critic, but he was merely expressing a view that I heard, usually in muttered and semi-drunken breaths, from many who hang around Sydney theatre, often, it seems, in eager anticipation of its demise.