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It has been an eventful couple of years for Rupert Murdoch. In Britain, evidence that reporters at several of his newspapers hacked into private cellphones led to the demise of News of the World, one of his mightiest tabloids, and incited a government inquiry into the British press.

In June, Mr. Murdoch announced that he was divorcing his third wife, Wendi Deng, whom he married in 1999. And now, with Australia having just held a federal election, Mr. Murdoch, a harsh critic of the Labor Party and the owner of 70 percent of the country's newspapers, is once again the topic of the day in his native land.

The dramatists have taken note. Richard Bean, the author of "One Man, Two Guvnors," is writing a play on the phone-hacking scandal for the National Theater in London at the invitation of its artistic director, Nicholas Hytner. Closer to home, the Melbourne Theater Company has just staged the premiere of "Rupert," a cabaret-style dramatization of Mr. Murdoch's life by one of Australia's best-known playwrights, David Williamson.

The play, at the Arts Center in Melbourne, uses two actors to play Murdoch. Guy Edmonds is the young Rupert. Sean O'Shea, appearing as Mr. Murdoch's 82-year-old self, also offers commentary and direction as the action unfolds - very quickly to accommodate a career spanning more than six decades.

Mr. Murdoch, Mr. Williamson said, "is the most powerful Australian or ex-Australian ever to have lived."

Mr. Williamson starts with Mr. Murdoch as the young heir to a failing Australian newspaper and follows him as he parlays success in Australia to tabloid triumphs in Britain, the purchase of The Times of London, and inroads into the United States.

Little is left out, not even the shaving-cream pie that a comedian heaved at Mr. Murdoch when he appeared to testify before a parliamentary committee.

The reviews have been good, although critics hoping to see Mr. Murdoch savaged came away disappointed. The Age, Melbourne's non-Murdoch daily, praised Mr. O'Shea's portrayal of Mr. Murdoch as "a roguish larrikin" (Australian slang for a hooligan or rowdy) with a "hint of menace beneath the charisma," while complaining that Mr. Williamson pulled too many punches.

The Australian, a national daily owned by Mr. Murdoch, gave a more than respectful account of the play. Its reviewer complained that Mr. Williamson had tried to cram too many events into one evening's entertainment, but called the first act "light and delightfully funny."

"Rupert" is to travel to Washington in March for five performances at the International Theater Festival.

Mr. Williamson is probably better known to American audiences as a screenwriter. He wrote the screenplays for "Gallipoli" and "The Year of Living Dangerously," both directed by Peter Weir.

His hands-off approach to Mr. Murdoch was deliberate, Mr. Williamson said.

The Murdoch character "invites the audience to see his real story," not the story from what a Murdoch paper might call "effete caffe-latte-sipping inner-city left-liberal elites," Mr. Williamson said.

"He casts his own show so that the younger version of himself is considerably more handsome and dynamic than he was, but, as he tells his audience, this is his show, so he can do what he likes," Mr. Williamson said.

The New York Times

(China Daily 09/15/2013 page12)