The Russian Doll play premieres at GPAC for Festival of Regional Theatre

The show will be part of this year's Festival of Regional Theatre.

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Mr Cole has been working on the play with GPAC's technical coordinator and community engagement specialist Suze Smith since earlier this year.

Mr Cole said the play is about the unravelling of the past and the relationship between a man and his mother.

"Russian Dolls (or Babushka dolls) are those wooden dolls that come apart and which contain other smaller dolls inside them," Mr Cole said.

"My main character, Peter, played with such a doll as a child. Now he is facing the difficult task of putting his fiery mother Jan into care, the past is resurfacing.

"Throughout the play he is coming apart, revealing a complex character, with many layers, like the doll," Mr Cole said.

Add Jan's cat, which has more than nine lives, snakes, and a 'Burning Man' into the mix, and the play cooks along at a fiery pace.

Mr Cole said the play is not a linear one.

"It starts in the present but travels into different times and places, into Peter's childhood, and also into some of the other character's pasts," Mr Cole said.

Actor Neil Pigot, of Blue Heelers fame, was present at a reading of the play at the Mill Theatre in Canberra in July and he travelled to Goulburn for a debrief with Mr Cole and Ms Smith about it.

Mr Pigot said he was impressed with the play.

"The play is 'wildly imaginative,' but it also does not shy away from the issues of mental illness and physical abuse," Mr Pigot said.

Director Suze Smith said the play is full of humour, and that it captures a slice of Australia's past, seen from a child's perspective.

"Local actor Axel Wellings beautifully plays Young Peter. He observes his surroundings in Australia in the early 1970s with humour and tenderness," Ms Smith said.

"He just wants to be like other kids. He wants to ride the Malvern Star bike in the garage and play cricket, but he can't. He has been removed from school because he suffers from debilitating OCD, which in those days was not well understood."

Ms Smith said that to cope with the chaos in life, forms a special relationship with a comic book character.

"He makes up complex rituals and poems, and he has a special relationship with 'Spidey' his Spider-Man doll, who looks out for him," Ms Smith said.

"It's a beautiful play and I hope people come and see the premiere of this work, by this aspiring local playwright, who is really starting to hit his straps."

The Russian Doll is on September 30 from 7.30pm, doors will open for nibbles and drinks at 6pm

Tickets to the show can be booked through the Goulburn Performing Arts Centre website or by calling 4823 4999.

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