Holding the Man

The course of teenage love rarely runs smooth, but it is a white-water adventure if you are a gay boy in an all-male school in 1970s Melbourne with a crush on the captain of the football team.

 

Still, despite the odds, Tim and John become close and for fifteen years their relationship survives everything life throws at it – the separations, the discriminations, the temptations, the jealousies and the losses – until the only problem that love can’t solve turns up to part them.

Based on a memoir by the late Timothy Conigrave, playwright Tommy Murphy has given us an up close and personal look at a 15-year gay relationship. It starts in the teen years and works its way through to the HIV/AIDS crisis of the ‘80s and ‘90s. Tim (Gene Efron) has his eyes on the school football captain John (Jack Stratton-Smith) and makes a play for him, which pays off.

What starts out as a crush becomes physical. In spite of parental concerns, the relationship evolves. While John is happy to maintain their exclusivity, Tim is not. Tim pursues a career as an actor, while John becomes a chiropractor. AIDS rears its ugly head and for too many becomes a life sentence. Holding The Man is a fiercely honest representation of what it is like to pursue one’s natural instincts.