Outer suburban Canberra might seem an unlikely setting for a play – especially a supernatural comedy-drama-romance with a touch of political satire. But that's where playwright and director Julian Hobba's next work takes place.

The Slip Lane sees Hobba's Aspen Island Theatre Company return to the Street Theatre following last year's two-week pop-up Public Theatre project in Civic Square. The Street is where the company began with Bartleby in 2014 and the new play was developed in its Hive program for new works.

Hobba says: "It's about two helpless, lonely souls who live in Gungahlin."

Part of the purpose of setting the play in Gungahlin was to make it representative of communities and societies on the fringes of Australia's big cities, Hobba says, and what people living in them have to bring some sort of sense to their lives.

"If you don't have family, what do you have?"

Matthew and Missy (Dene Kermond and Claire Moss) are both in their mid-30s and divorced and meet at Access Canberra. She thinks she's being stalked by someone or something mysterious and he – depressed and on leave from work through Comcare – is seeking purpose in life through mounting a campaign to improve the intersection of Gundaroo Drive and the Gungahlin Drive Extension.

"Basically, the play is about trust," Hobba says. Investigating the perceived threat to Missy, Matthew is drawn to the apparitions he discovers and thinks they could prove useful in his political campaigning – but what will that potential Faustian pact do to his budding relationship with Missy?

Hobba says while Matthew is an idealist who wants to create change, one of the things the play suggests is that finding opportunities to make connections is important – not losing sight of the personal while getting involved with the political.

"One of the ways we can do that is through connections to people in our own lives."

The play also features Canberra comic performers Nick Delatovic and Emma Strand in multiple roles. Canberra video artist Danny Wild will use an oversize screen in the Street One theatre to interpret the landscapes of Gungahlin and the supernatural elements presented in the play.

Hobba says he hopes The Slip Lane will be funny as well as dramatic and poignant as two damaged people tentatively form a bond, which he points out "can be a painful process".