Inspired by a notorious con artist’s high life in New York, this two-hander by UK playwright Joseph Charlton is a tale of deceit, narcissism and personal branding enabled by social media.

Premiering in London in 2019, and now making its Australian debut at Red Stitch Actors’ Theatre, Anna X will ring bells for those who have seen Inventing Anna.

That 2022 mini-series dramatised the escapades of Anna Sorokin, who posed as an heiress in New York around a decade ago. She curated an image of wealth and fame on Instagram while repeatedly committing fraud and taking advantage of friends to fund her lavish lifestyle.

Becca Galvin and Tom Stokes in Anna X. Photo © Simon Fazio

Like Sorokin, Charlton’s Anna X seeks investors for an exclusive club centred around contemporary art. However, his version is from Ukraine and begins a situationship with Ariel, who also recently moved to New York, flush with millions invested in his VIP dating app start-up.

Their lives in a tech-driven, image-conscious, fashionable milieu have clear parallels, but while Ariel is nervous in his romantic and business endeavours, Anna is audacious, calculating and detached.

Director Tait de Lorenzo keeps this snappy, dialogue-driven play moving, both in terms of pace and space, defying the confines of Red Stitch’s tiny stage. Becca Galvin (Anna) and Tom Stokes (Ariel) shift set designer Louisa Fitzgerald’s simple cubes, columns and screens on, off and around the stage, sometimes openly, sometimes unobtrusively.

Becca Galvin in Anna X. Photo © Chris Parker

Enhanced by Lisa Mibus’s lighting and Grace Ferguson’s electronic beats, the set and Charlie D’s AV design are abstract. This production doesn’t try to transport us around NYC; like Anna’s life, there’s little substance to what we see directly. Within the limitations of a tight budget, Fitzgerald’s costumes deliver some designer style, from cool sunglasses to a Chanel bag.

Recent Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts graduate Galvin makes an impressive professional debut as an ice queen of deception. With an exotic Euro-American accent, and a mix of assertive statements and performative ennui, she quickly makes Anna an alluring figure.

Stokes, seen lately in national tours of And Then There Were None and Death of a Salesman, has less to work with as Ariel. He’s persuasive as this somewhat implausibly nice guy behind an elitist app, but despite fairly equal time on stage, Ariel is overshadowed by the larger-than-life Anna. This character is essentially there for contrast, and as someone for our anti-heroine to bounce off.

Both actors also drop into a handful of minor roles with varying success. Stokes’s sleazy editor is undermined by a strange French accent, and Galvin underplays Ariel’s American ex-girlfriend.

Anna X is a smart, fast look at modern life, sizzling with satire and sharp observations (including Anna’s five axioms for life, such as never showing excitement and crying as a last resort). By focusing on dialogue, this production overcomes its physical limitations and takes us on a disturbingly fun ride.

Anna X is at Red Stitch Actors’ Theatre, Melbourne, until 21 June.