Timothy Conigrave’s memoir, Holding the Man, comes to life on stage at the Powerhouse this month. Melissa Giles spoke with lead actor Guy Edmonds.

In Tim Conigrave’s classic memoir, Holding the Man (1995), he writes of the first time he laid eyes on John Caleo, who would become his boyfriend during high school: “On the far side of the crush I noticed a boy. I saw the body of a man with an open, gentle face: such softness within that masculinity. He was beautiful, calm. I was transfixed.”

What follows is a riveting Australian love story that unfolds during the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, completed by Conigrave in 1994, not long before he died. The raw and brutally honest account of life and death in Conigrave’s book has since been adapted by Tommy Murphy into an award-winning play of the same name.

Guy Edmonds, who plays the lead as Conigrave, describes Murphy’s script as a “beautiful text”, which, like the book, doesn’t hold back in portraying the darker side of Conigrave and Caleo’s relationship, as well as its good side.

Edmonds, a 2004 Queensland University of Technology acting graduate, may be recognised by some readers from his former role as ambulance officer, Stuart, in the TV drama All Saints.

He first became interested in Holding the Man after seeing a poster advertising the play, and then approached director David Berthold, who gave him a copy of the book to read.

“It was just devastating, but brilliant,” Edmonds recalls of the story. “I just knew that I had to do it.”

He eventually got the part of Conigrave and his performances in Sydney saw him nominated for a 2007 Sydney Theatre Award for Best Actor in a Lead Role. Although he didn’t win, it was valuable recognition, Edmonds admits, particularly as Holding the Man was his professional stage debut.

In addition to the accolades the play has received, it has had four sell-out seasons in Sydney venues, including the Opera House. When asked about the amazing popularity of the play, Edmonds says, “people crave the really honest human connection”.

Rather than simply watching the play, clapping politely and leaving as the same person they were when they walked in, he believes people remember stories like Holding the Man and are truly affected by them.

The audience reactions to the Sydney shows have been overwhelming. “Being my first professional show, I initially thought this was just how [it was normally],” Edmonds explains. But after doing other plays, he has come to realise just how special Holding the Man is in its ability to provoke such a “visceral response”. He says: “[There are] people openly weeping and then one minute [later] they’re laughing hysterically. It’s incredible.”

Edmonds maintains that the play is much greater than the sum of its parts. “There’s some magic that happens with it,” he says enthusiastically. “[The] resonance the story has with audiences is something that I’ve not ever really seen before.”

He hopes that the Brisbane public will understand that Holding the Man is not simply ‘a gay play’ or ‘an AIDS play’.
“

It is so much more than that,” Edmonds states proudly. “It’s the kind of story that needs to be shared with as many people as possible. It’s a story about love, loss, redemption, about why we love people and why we hurt the people that we love.”

Holding the Man plays the Brisbane Powerhouse from March 5 to 9 at the Powerhouse Theatre. www.brisbanepowerhouse.org

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