This play’s title is a suitably provocative teaser for what’s in store on stage: it makes us think, but should we be offended, or smile at its playful interrogation of these words? Declan Greene’s script does all this and more, at breakneck speed. We are quickly introduced to an intentionally stereotypical gay couple in Sydney who are outraged by a menu item: faggots. Thus begins a fearlessly funny explosion of identity and language, in a world where both are fluid and polarised.

Simon Burke and Simon Corfield in The Homosexuals. Photos by Brett Boardman

The couple are randy Warren (Simon Burke), who is trying to seduce a handsome young straight man (Lincoln Younes), and Kim (Simon Corfield), a drama queen who spouts highly academic terms of gender and sexual identity as stress relief. As the music of Mardi Gras begins to pump off-stage – a reminder of both the queer community’s reputation for tolerance, and the challenges of its inherent diversity – their friend Diana (Genevieve Lemon) arrives dressed as Bill Cosby. A white trans woman who swears like a sailor, she is on her way to a politically-incorrect-themed party. The pressure cooker,...