Forbidden love and LGBTIQ+ activism intersect in Mark Salvestro’s riveting play, ‘The Will to Be’
Image by Sare Clarke Photography
Words By August Billy
The Will to Be reveals the legacy of systemic homophobia.
The 1960s is typically romanticised as a time of personal and cultural liberation driven by youth counterculture, feminism, civil rights and free love. But in much of the Western world, the laws regarding homosexuality were positively barbaric.
England and Wales decriminalised same-sex sexual activity for people over the age of 21 in 1967, while Illinois was the only US state to decriminalise any time before the 1970s. Australia wasn’t particularly sprightly in this regard, either. South Australia got there first, decriminalising acts of male homosexuality in 1975, and Victoria followed suit in 1981.