A window on to a world many of its younger audience would find hard to recognise let alone accept, CAMP pays tribute to those who agitated for gay rights in Australia. In doing so, it traverses four decades of history and social change.

Playwright Elias Jamieson Brown’s focus is on the small corps of activists who formed Australia’s first gay rights organisation, the Campaign Against Moral Persecution. Opening with a series of simulated freeze-frames of them in action during a gay rights demonstration, CAMP whisks the viewer back in time to the early 1970s, a time when sex between consenting male adults was illegal and lesbians were dismissed as morally aberrant or mentally ill.

Jane Phegan and Tamara Natt in CAMP. Photo © Alex Vaughan

We are introduced to Jo (played by Tamara Natt), a ward assistant at Sydney’s now infamous Chelmsford Private Hospital. She is being fired, having helped herself to some psycho-active meds. From there, she finds her way into the orbit of lesbian activist Krissy (Jane Phegan) and meets Tracey (Lou McInnes), on the run from Chelmsford after enduring months of so-called therapies.

Jo falls for Tracey. Krissy is...