The Confidence Man combines family drama and crime thriller – with a couple of twists. In this play, some members of the audience don masks and earpieces to perform the characters while others use iPhones to decide which storylines they will follow as the drama unfolds.

Director and co-writer Zoe Pepper says, "It's an interactive audio work about a man who by accident gets involved with some very dodgy dealings and brings a large bag of cash into a family home."

Sam, a lawyer, comes to visit Maria and Alex and their daughter Anita. The family members – who are dealing with their own issues – thinks it's just a visit from an old friend but Sam has stolen a large sum of money from a couple of drug dealers, Maria and Alex, who work out what's happened and come after their cash.

"What's different about the story is that everybody is the hero – everybody has the story told from their perspective," Pepper says. T

he dialogue has been prerecorded by a cast of actors and the audience volunteers – who have been briefed before the show – follow instructions via their headsets to play the characters and carry out the actions on stage.

While the storyline was inspired by such films as the Quentin Tarantino crime thriller Pulp Fiction, the Australian drama Lantana and the Alfred Hitchcock suspense drama Shadow of a Doubt, the staging takes its cue from Lars von Triers' Dogville – with a floor plan drawn on to the bare stage – and the props and furnishings will be sourced at each new location.

"We'll have a new set in every town."

The audience members who are watching can follow one character's storyline on their iPhone or use it to switch between characters as they follow the onstage action and something catches their attention. Pepper says the story is designed so that the audience can maintain a basic understanding of what's going on at all times even as they choose where to place their focus.

And as for the onstage performers, while they are being constantly instructed via earpiece, Pepper says the creators didn't want it to be "like a play written by Siri – we give the performers some level of autonomy to create their own version of the character in the way they act it out".

For example, at one point the actor playing Susan has to put some items away in the "kitchen", one of which will be retrieved later. They choose where to put things so they will know the location.

"If you want to play, arrive 15 or 20 minutes before the show," Pepper says.

"It's first in, best dressed."

Everyone else in the audience will get to see how they go.

Pepper says The Confidence Man looks at greed and dissatisfaction and its characters' feelings are mirrored in the presentation for those watching, who may feel like they are missing out on something and having to settle for only a partial understanding of what is going on as they can't directly follow all the action.

But that doesn't seem to have stopped the play working for audiences: some people come to the show more than once to follow different characters, Pepper says.

The Confidence Man was developed by Western Australian Academy of Performing Art graduate Pepper's company Side Pony Productions as something of a departure. "Our style is usually tragicomedies that are overtly theatrical, with bad wigs and false teeth."

It was first performed in 2013 in Melbourne, was recently on in Perth and Canberra will be the start of a two-and-a-half-month tour on a very small scale.

Pepper says, "The touring party is me and the production manager."