IF Canberrans don’t know the name Antinous, they’re about to.

He was the breathtakingly beautiful Greek boy whose lover, the Roman Emperor Hadrian, so mourned when he died that he founded a cult devoted to his worship.

Now the respected Canberra theatre writer/director David Atfield has written a play about to take the stage at The Street in which Antinous partly becomes the means to exploring important issues of sexuality and identity.

Atfield came across the story in 2001 while travelling in Europe and set about writing a play about Antinous, applying to put it through The Street’s “Hive” process where it was dramaturged by Peter Matheson and Julian Hobba. In 2012 Hobba directed a reading and a second reading followed in 2013. Now Atfield is directing the play himself.

So, given the Greco-Roman predilection for older-younger man relationships, why “scandalous”?

That, Atfield tells me, comes from the views of Christian historians who tended to praise Hadrian as a peaceful and cultured ruler while belittling Antinous as the object of banned heretical worship. Naked statues of Antinous abounded in Greece, Rome and Turkey – and he was so good-looking.

Atfield explains that Antinous drowned mysteriously in the Nile at age 19. “My play theorises on one possibility of murder… but I’m not going to give the plot away,” he says. “The facts of their relationship are extremely sketchy, so I got to write what I wanted to write about.

“I wanted to look at the nature of ageing, defining yourself through your sexuality and the way that can cause problems… as well as the question of older men looking for younger partners… it’s the same thing with older men and young wives,” he says.

In short, the story raises a thoroughly contemporary issue, our obsession with youth and beauty, and the pressure to be perfect looking and thus resorting to beauty therapy and abuse of steroids

Antinous first met Emperor Hadrian when he was 16 – “that’s a big gig for a young guy,” Atfield says. A member of the “eromenos” class of boys trained to please men, he could have been dumped for a younger successor, but he wasn’t.

“I theorise that Hadrian fell in love for the first time in his life,” says Atfield.

True, there was no Roman word for “gay” at the time, but he believes Hadrian was “essentially gay”, with his wife Sabina’s tacit acceptance. The play is written for five actors – a large cast these days, as he says – Antinous, Hadrian, Sabina and two fictional characters.

“It’s written in contemporary language with contemporary music (including an instantly recognisable gay anthem) and costumes,” says Atfield who has scored a coup in getting Sydney TV star and gay spokesman Nicholas Eadie to play Hadrian.

But in the end, the story is told from Antinous’ point of view, as actor Ethan Gibson, playing Antinous as a statue in a museum, interrelates with the audience through flashbacks.

“Ah, yes”, Atfield warns with some relish, “there’ll be nudity and sex scenes in the play – something unusual for Canberra.”

“Scandalous Boy”, The Street Theatre, November 14-23, bookings to 6247 1223 or thestreet.org.au