Playwright Patricia Cornelius has long been renowned for speaking truth to power, so it’s hardly surprising she has turned her attention to a fellow Melburnian famously hellbent on exposing uncomfortable truths: Julian Assange.

Her dramatisation of dissent, which also looks at two whistleblowers who used his Wikileaks platform, may be a revelation to those who haven’t been paying attention to the news for the past decade or more.

For those who have, Truth probably won’t reveal much that’s new, and for all its defiant words and gestures, the paucity of emotional engagement will limit its appeal.

Malthouse Theatre: Truth. Photo © Pia Johnson

Directed by Cornelius’s long-time collaborator Susie Dee, this 80-minute Malthouse production’s taught energy and stark design bodes well at first. A five-strong ensemble nimbly presents the bold yet benign hacking and consequent legal troubles for several young counter-culturalists, including Assange, in the 1980s and 90s.

Emily Havea, Tomáš Kantor, James O’Connell, Eva Rees and Eva Seymour variously interpret Assange across the decades, as well as a handful of associated people. Most prominent are the women at the centre of his murky sexual assault charges, and whistleblowers Chelsea Manning and Edward...