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This Much Is True single work   drama   - 90 Minutes
Issue Details: First known date: 2017... 2017 This Much Is True
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'A debt collector, a drag queen, a rogue chemist and a manic depressive walk into a pub…

'THIS MUCH IS TRUE continues the story of Lewis from Summer of the Aliens and Cosi. Now he’s older, a writer and lives in an inner city suburb filled with public housing, the underclass and characters who could only exist in such a place.

'He attends the 150 year old hotel, The Rising Sun, where he mixes with a core of customers, including an ice chemist, a once famous drag queen, a violent debt collector, a con man, a manic depressive and a fixer.

'These stories are true.' (Production summary)

Production Details

  • World premiere at The Old Fitz Theatre Woolloomooloo, Sydney. Presented by Red Line Productions : 12th July – 12th August.

    Director: Toby Schmitz.

    Assistant Director: Andrew Henry.

    Set Designer: Anna Gardiner.

    Lighting Designer: Matt Cox.

    Costume Designer: Martelle Hunt.

    Sound Designer: Jed Silver.

    Cast: Septimus Caton, Joanna Downing, Danny Adcock, Justin Stewart Cotta, Robin Goldsworthy, Alan Dukes, Martin Jacobs, and Ashley Lyons.


    Presented by Griffin Theatre Company, 9 February - 21 April 2024.

    Director: Declan Greene.

    Associate Director: Daley Rangi.

    Set Designer: Jeremy Allen.

    Costume Designer: Melanie Liertz.

    Lighting Designer: Kelsey Lee.

    Composer & Sound Designer: Daniel Herten.

    Consultant, Disability: Christopher Bryant.

    Consultant, Inclusion: Bayley Turner.

    Cast: Thomas Campbell, Paul Capsis, Philip Lynch, and Nikki Viveca.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

First known date: 2017
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Lewis Trilogy Louis Nowra , Strawberry Hills : Currency Press , 2018 15863021 2018 selected work drama

    'Spanning five decades from 1962 to 2017, The Lewis Trilogy follows Louis Nowra's occasional hero, sometime narrator and perennial misfit, Lewis, as he struggles to find and understand his place in the changing world around him. In Summer of the Aliens, Lewis is a young man on the cusp of adulthood, growing up in a Melbourne housing commission. Set against the backdrop of the Cuban missile crisis, the play is a coming of age story about sex and family, alien invasions, and suburban tragedies played out behind closed doors. In Cosi, Lewis is fresh out of university and directing Mozart's Cosi fan tutte with the inmates of a mental institution. As anti Vietnam protests take place in the streets outside, Lewis finds himself stepping off the sidelines to become emotionally involved with his actors' lives. In This Much is True, Lewis is a writer 'between divorces' and temporarily adrift among the outsiders and dropouts of an inner city Sydney pub. Older, and possibly wiser, Lewis is once more drawn into a world of colourful characters, all of them searching for magic in the mundane. Lewis' constant search for connection plays out against the evolving hopes and battles of Australian society -' just like us, only more extraordinary.'  (Publication summary)

    Strawberry Hills : Currency Press , 2018

Works about this Work

This Much Is True (Red Line Productions) Ian Dickson , 2017 single work essay
— Appears in: ABR : Arts 2017;

'Louis Nowra’s latest play, his first in ten years because apparently and appallingly no major company in Australia has asked him for one, is the third in his semi-autobiographical Lewis trilogy. In Summer of the Aliens (1992), the young Lewis, growing up in housing-commission Melbourne, has to find a way to come to terms with the unpredictable adults who surround him and to deal with his feelings for his coevals. Così (1992) finds a slightly older Lewis attempting to introduce Mozart into the lives of an even more extreme group in a mental hospital, while staggering through a dying relationship. In This Much Is True, a more mature Lewis, now a writer recuperating from a divorce, as much spectator as participant, hangs out in the bar of The Rising Sun, a Woolloomooloo pub not entirely dissimilar to The Old Fitzroy in which the play is being presented. This Much Is True can also be seen as the third piece in another Nowra trilogy, an addendum to his recent love letters to the neighbourhood; King’s Cross (2013) and Woolloomooloo (2017).' (Introduction) 

2017 Arts Highlights of the Year Various , 2017 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , November no. 396 2017; (p. 39-43)

'To celebrate the year’s memorable plays, films, concerts, operas, ballets, and exhibitions, we invited twenty-six critics and arts professionals to nominate some personal favourites.' (Introduction)

2017 Arts Highlights of the Year Various , 2017 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , November no. 396 2017; (p. 39-43)

'To celebrate the year’s memorable plays, films, concerts, operas, ballets, and exhibitions, we invited twenty-six critics and arts professionals to nominate some personal favourites.' (Introduction)

This Much Is True (Red Line Productions) Ian Dickson , 2017 single work essay
— Appears in: ABR : Arts 2017;

'Louis Nowra’s latest play, his first in ten years because apparently and appallingly no major company in Australia has asked him for one, is the third in his semi-autobiographical Lewis trilogy. In Summer of the Aliens (1992), the young Lewis, growing up in housing-commission Melbourne, has to find a way to come to terms with the unpredictable adults who surround him and to deal with his feelings for his coevals. Così (1992) finds a slightly older Lewis attempting to introduce Mozart into the lives of an even more extreme group in a mental hospital, while staggering through a dying relationship. In This Much Is True, a more mature Lewis, now a writer recuperating from a divorce, as much spectator as participant, hangs out in the bar of The Rising Sun, a Woolloomooloo pub not entirely dissimilar to The Old Fitzroy in which the play is being presented. This Much Is True can also be seen as the third piece in another Nowra trilogy, an addendum to his recent love letters to the neighbourhood; King’s Cross (2013) and Woolloomooloo (2017).' (Introduction) 

Last amended 23 Oct 2023 15:58:38
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