Brendan Cowell’s tempestuous relationship with the bottle led to him writing Ruben Guthrie, a hard-hitting comedy that challenges Australia’s booze culture. He sat down with Garrett Bithell to discuss the play, his own story, and close relationship with the lead actor, Toby Schmitz.

When Brendan Cowell sat down to write Ruben Guthrie, it was the first time he had decided to write a play about his own experiences.

“I had just taken a year off alcohol,” he tells AXN. “And the experiences I had in that year were so illuminating, so funny and so terrifying. Not just the changes in myself, but the changes in the people and the world around me. I thought to myself, ‘I wonder if there’s a play in this guy who gives up alcohol in a country that won’t accept someone who doesn’t drink’. Especially in this industry, especially the kind of guy I am.”

Ruben Guthrie debuted as an independent production on the downstairs stage at Belvoir Street Theatre in Sydney last year to packed houses. It holds an unflinching mirror up to the Australian culture of binge drinking, and our reflection certainly stared back, glaring with brutal truth that left many squirming in their seats.

A remount of the play now has a season on the upstairs stage. The action is centred around Ruben Guthrie, a hot shot creative director of an advertising agency. He’s engaged to a model and Sydney is his oyster. As far as Ruben’s concerned, it’s un-Australian not to enjoy a regular tipple. One infamous industry awards night however, his tippling topples him off a hotel roof into a baby pool. Next thing Ruben knows, he’s off to AA with the biggest hangover of his life.

“I don’t think my story is as exciting as Ruben’s, but there are definitely some parallels,” Cowell says. “I didn’t jump off the roof of a hotel at an advertising party, but I did some similar dare-devil acts. You do silly things on alcohol, and it’s only when you stop that you realise your behaviour and you go, ‘holy shit! I did that, I said that, I jumped over there, I grabbed her, I called that person’. It’s like ‘who the fuck are you?’ You’re an animal!”

It goes without saying that this experience isn’t exclusive to Ruben or Brendan. Australia’s intense relationship with the bottle is revered around the world. Alcohol is an intrinsic part of our culture – and indeed our vernacular. ‘Let’s catch up for a beer’ is one of our catch phrases.

“I think there are a lot of people with problems that we’re encouraging to continue in their problem,” Cowell muses. “It would be nice if you went to pub and said ‘I’m just having a mineral water’, and people didn’t blink an eye. But you feel like such a criminal saying it – and people look at you like you’re a social leper. So you end up having one, and then you have ten again.

“You’ve got to think about who we are as a country and as a people, because there’s something we’re pouring petrol on. I don’t know what we’re doing, but there’s something we’re hiding from that alcohol is helping us with.

“I’m willing to try fucking everything to have an even relationship with alcohol!”

Ruben is played by Cowell’s good friend and long-time collaborator Toby Schmitz, who is incidentally the golden boy of Sydney theatre at the moment. Schmitz is almost always Cowell’s first choice when it comes to casting.

“I think I take credit for a lot of his brilliance! He makes my shit work! We’ve developed a pretty amazing working relationship now, but he’s a really good friend of mine. And it’s amazing we’re friends because we’re both playwrights and actors; we go for a lot of the same stuff, we’re compared to a lot, and we’ve had disappointments on both sides with each other getting things.

“But none of it has got between us, which I love, and I think that’s because we are both men of the theatre – and there’s no fucking point in having any ego in the theatre!”

Brendan Cowell’s Ruben Guthrie, upstairs at Belvoir Street Theatre, Sydney (25 Belvoir Street, Surry Hills) until July 5. For bookings call (02) 9699 3444 or go online at belvoir.com.au .