THIS MUCH IS TRUE

★★★½

Old Fitzroy Theatre, July 15. Until August 12

Louis Nowra's new play, his first in a decade, throws its arms around the shoulders of the genres of memory play and site-specific documentary and gives them a big, beery man-hug.

In the guise of his theatrical alter ego Lewis – of Summer of the Aliens and Cosi fame – Nowra brings together past and present, the living and the dead in a character-driven shaggy dog of a show that revels in a culture of old school rascality and eulogises its passing.

Some of the stories and most of the characters also appear in Woolloomooloo, Nowra's recently published social history of the suburb, but even so I wouldn't take any of it as hard fact. As in an angler's report of the day's adventures, the fish get bigger, the fight to land them more intense. 

The action takes place in a simulacrum of the Old Fitzroy's upstairs bar. This is The Rising Sun, the ruin of many a poor boy, no doubt, and second home a rogues gallery of local identities.

Here you'll find Cass (Danny Adcock), autodidact, fence, and ex-manager of a famous female wrestler, and Malcolm (Alan Dukes), a casino debt collector. Most days you'll encounter the charming, troubled and bi-polar Wesley (Ashley Lyons) and, when he's not cooking meth for bikie gangs, underworld chemist Clarrie (Martin Jacobs). Glamour frequently arrives in the form of erstwhile cabaret star Venus (Justin Stewart Cotta), never in the same outfit twice.

Newcomer Rhys (Robin Goldsworthy), a smooth-talking investment adviser, has fast become a regular. Gretel (Joanna Downing), young and of hippie stock, keeps bar. Beyond the front door sits Tommy, The Rising Sun's self-appointed, largely incomprehensible sentinel.

Lewis (a mellifluous Septimus Caton in instantly recognisable Nowra drag) is a writer recently moved to the area. In a blink is he is befriended and absorbed into (and by) this crooked little microcosm.

This Much Is True weaves considerable magic from tall tales, little tragedies, and the sentimental glow Nowra casts over his characters. All are honourable if not entirely trustworthy in the short term. All would give a right arm for a mate. Those with histories of violence and criminality are treated with as much compassion as those whose lives are beset by mental illness, loneliness and despair.

This production, designed by Anna Gardiner and directed by Toby Schmitz is similarly warm, infused as it is with a rich sense of the Old Fitzroy's theatrical history. Schmitz started his career here as an actor and writer. Adcock, Dukes, Lyons, Cotta and Goldsworthy have all etched their names on the honour board of fine performances made on this stage and can do so again after this season ends. Any regular feels among friends.

What would a complete newcomer to the world depicted here make of it? The young might think it stuck in some pre-internet time warp populated by grumpy old white men and a towering trans stereotype. Women might very reasonably regard the lack of female voices in the piece as an issue. Gretel is pallid to say the least.

And at an uninterrupted two hours This Much Is True may strike some as too much. Could it stand to lose 15 minutes? Probably, yes. But the writing and acting is such that you'd be hard pressed to nominate points at which to wield a knife for fear of trimming this production's captivating performances.

My advice, for what it's worth? Take two glasses of your poison down to the theatre instead of one. Settle in and surrender.