Intimacy takes its impetus from conversations with strangers off the streets of Melbourne and elsewhere and turns the material into gentle and often disturbing observations about human behaviour.

It's spare theatre, with three actors, some electronic imagery, a guitar and a couple of bar stools. Adriano Cortese, Patrick Moffatt and Beth Buchanan slide between questions and answers and the characters, too, are fluid. The spine of the show is in the questioning and the occasionally disconcerting replies.

There's an ancient history teacher who is over the teaching part but who muses about history being really just stories. And it's stories that follow.

A woman cannot sleep and is haunted by dreams in her waking hours. A street performer who does bird characters gradually reveals a graceful practice driven by a narrowly obsessive focus.

A man cannot stop wondering how he is perceived by others. Another talks candidly about an unscrupulous use of unsuspecting others in his masturbatory habits.

There's self-revelation and a strange honesty in these interviews, strange because it's about people opening up to a questioner they do not know. The implication is that this creates honesty because the questioners do not judge but can and do remain neutral.

This is the power of the stance taken by the three performers when they nudge the various narratives along. There's an occasional quiet tension when the revelations become too much but largely Buchanan, Moffatt and Cortese remain controlled interviewers, allowing the interviewees to flourish.

The effect of this is theatrically fascinating. There's much use of silence and the flexibility of the form means the audience has to be on their toes to follow changes of character or the arrival of a new narrative. There's humour, too, so that no revelation becomes totally unbearable. The show is about intimacy and that warmth remains despite the apparent loneliness of many of the characters.

Costume remains casual and everyday. The onstage guitar becomes a warm image, only picked up once by someone who barely plays it. And some lights remain on the audience throughout. No hiding in the shadows.

Buchanan's-dream driven woman, Cortese's succession of seemingly controlled characters and Moffatt's graceful bird man are standouts.

At just over an hour this densely absorbing piece feels longer for all the right reasons.