IN his new play, “Pigman’s Lament”, Canberra actor, playwright and former economist Raoul Craemer brings his own mixed Indian and German past to the fore.

The one-man play will see Craemer unlocking the skeletons in his family’s closet, secrets that his fascist German grandfather has no intention of letting him give up. Trapped in his Canberra apartment, Craemer re-lives extreme moments from his own life in what he says is “a hair-raising reckoning between the generations”.

“A lot of the German parts are very funny and also very scary,” the play’s director Paulo Castro tells me over coffee at The Street.

Celebrated as a director with the São João National Theatre in his homeland Portugal, Castro now shares a flourishing theatre practice in Adelaide with his actor wife Jo Stone, with whom he recently staged “The Country” by “in-yer-face” British playwright Martin Crimp at the Adelaide Festival.

Unlike people from far northern climes, Castro believes that Portuguese and Australian people share “a black sense of humour” that will respond well to his treatment of the script he’s spicing up with physical theatre to produce “positivity in the misery”.

Billed as a case of performance art meeting psychological thriller, “Pigman’s Lament” is the result of a long dramaturgical process spearheaded by The Street’s Caroline Stacey.

Craemer, after attending Castro’s theatre workshop last year at The Street, asked if he could work with him, travelling to Adelaide for two weeks early this year. There Castro began to work his spicy magic, transforming the play from one where an actor just sits in a chair to one full of physical action and visual excitement.

“I’m always looking out for what’s not in the text,” says Castro.

“We put practical suggestions to Raoul, so that by the time I came here [to Canberra] we had a finished script.”

Through the dynamism and charm, you can see the toughness that makes him a good director.

“My theatre must reflect on the contemporary world, the here and now,” Castro says.

“I recreate the text with my own imagination to make it very physical very performative and very symbolic – the text is a jumping off point to go to somewhere else.

“It’s tricky because it’s Raoul’s true story – the names are real but sometimes the story is not real, that’s what happens when you’re transforming documentary theatre into physical theatre.”

Castro says he has created a lot of action, but that has been helped by Craemer’s own acting experience – he was first known in Canberra as a clown.

“He’s not a clown here, but he is very versatile as he jumps from one character to another in a kind of metamorphosis,” Castro says.

“It’s unique and exotic and contemporary.”

“Pigman’s Lament” world premiere, The Street Theatre, June 24-July 3. Bookings to thestreet.org.au or 6247 1223.