Sydney’s Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras is many things to many people: a huge party, a parade, a joyous celebration of difference, a commercial opportunity, and a time to reflect. With the city absolutely covered in rainbows for 2023’s mammoth Sydney WorldPride celebration, it’s easy to forget that before it was any of these things, it was a riot.
CAMP, a new play from Siren Theatre Co and the Seymour Centre, tells the story of the Campaign Against Moral Persecution (C.A.M.P.) one of the first gay and lesbian rights organisations to begin the fight for acceptance in Australia over 50 years ago in 1971 (at a meeting in Balmain!). Some of its bravest members were at Sydney’s first Mardi Gras protest party in 1978.
Playwright Elias Jamieson Brown (Green Park) focuses this huge story through four partially fictionalised people: recently divorced and now out-lesbian single mother Jo (Tamara Natt), who joins the activists Dave (Adriano Cappelletta) and Krissy (Jane Phegan) after meeting these fellow “friends of Dorothy” at a pub. Later, Jo meets Tracy (Lou McInnes), who has recently escaped an attempt to “cure” her lesbianism at the Chelmsford psychiatric hospital (home of Dr Harry Bailey’s horrific deep sleep therapy).
The action takes place on a raised stage, designed by Angelina Meany, that looks something like those you’d find in a community hall, and is built entirely of wood. A single table and an assortment of mismatched mid-century chairs create television studios, radio stations, C.A.M.P. meeting rooms, and slower, tableau moments of protest (directed exquisitely by movement director Emily Ayoub). A wooden arch that curves above the stage is the backdrop for video design by Morgan Moroney, which uses archival footage from the documentary film Witches and Faggots, Dykes and Poofters to help create a protest that feels larger than the seven actors on stage. Combined with stylistic cues like flannelette shirts, protest badges, cardboard slogan signs (“Lesbians are Lovely!”), paisley flares and subtle white/yellow lighting – all of this brings a scruffy, DIY air to CAMP that is comfortingly familiar to those of us who’ve sat in a sweaty university classroom discussing how best to divide resources for a protest (even as recently as the campaign for marriage equality).
The play has a strong documentary feel (thanks in part to director Kate Gaul), with projected place names and dates signaling scene changes The actors also face the audience when speaking to each other. In the first scenes, this sometimes felt disjointed, and the actors struggled to hit the right emotional beats to draw us into a story which has quite a lot of moving parts and disparate examples of homophobic violence. The strongest scenes came later, when older versions of Tracy (Sandie Eldridge) and Jo (Genevieve Mooy) took the stage in 2022 – with Jo writing a book about their activism days (which is the actual book that inspired this play, co-authored by associate producer Robyn Kennedy) and Tracy learning more about her traumatic experiences at Chelmsford. An older, exhausted Krissy (Anni Finsterer) comes to meet them in Sydney, and they reminisce together about what could have been. The older actors give heart-wrenching performances, and their scenes bring a lovely depth to the stories of their youthful counterparts. Dave is conspicuously missing, lost to a hate crime before he could grow older with his friends. His younger self stays on stage right to the end, in a beautiful reminder that our queer ancestors live on through us.
Mardi Gras’ first float is always the 78ers. They risked jobs, families, and lives to speak out for those of us who would be privileged enough to follow in their footsteps. CAMP tells their stories. CAMP names them, like the Sydney Morning Herald did in 1978, and remembers them as the pioneers they were, casting a particularly important spotlight on the rarely shared stories of women in the early pride movements. CAMP serves as a not-so-gentle reminder that the fight is far, far from over. Start your WorldPride right and see this passionately rendered tribute to Sydney’s queer activist history.
CAMP is playing at the Seymour Centre, Chippendale, until Mar 4, 2023. Find tickets here.
Read the interview: we spoke to 78er Robyn Kennedy about CAMP and Sydney’s first LGBTQIA+ history museum.