The Players is Deborah Pike’s debut novel, and the title refers to a group of Perth university students and their involvement in the drama society. Much like Louis Nowra’s Così, it takes an unlikely mob and has them perform an even more unlikely and over-ambitious show. In this case it’s The Marriage of Figaro. Yet it makes peculiar sense that the Beaumarchais work that became more famous as one of Mozart’s best comic operas can be so seamlessly utilised to portray the awkwardness and occasional pain of young lives at the tail end of the 20th century.

The Players is not only about theatre – in theory and practice – but uses the performances as a thread through the students’ lives over the next 10 years. It begins with Felix, a reluctant engineering student on exchange from Germany. Destined for a sensible future, he nevertheless makes a grab for creativity and neatly engineers himself into the role of the production’s director.

He’s something of an observer and pays attention to Sebastian, the envied golden boy of the year and already a man of immense self-esteem and material wellbeing. Even in the absence of a teddy...