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Anyone who lived through the 1970s remembers New York during its darkest days of crime, drugs and urban decay. Transplants like myself only have "Serpico" or "Taxi Driver" to remind us. Now comes Little Doc, a relationship drama set on the mean streets of that bygone time.

This first full-length play by documentary filmmaker Dan Klores, if nothing else, displays cinematic attention to time and place. The meticulously grungy set is by Broadway designer David Rockwell and Clint Ramos’s costumes are groovy perfection.

The play takes place in a run-down Brooklyn apartment building under the elevated subway. The stage is shown in split-screen: on the left is a second floor apartment occupied by a circle of drugged out hippies, and on the right is the ground-floor bar.

The apartment is occupied by Ric, played with sullen, raffish charm by Adam Driver. Ric is a neighborhood kid who was a child prodigy: he could have been a doctor or scientist, but squandered that promise by dealing and using drugs.

In the bar below, Ric’s father, Weasel, a small-time bookie, kills time with a mobster who believes that Ric has robbed him. To investigate the money owed him, the gangster sends in an enforcer, Angelo.

There’s not much plot to Klores’s play, which is essentially a study of various relationships -- fathers and sons, boyhood friends, lovers --with crime thrown in to add an element of danger.

Copious amounts of cocaine, booze and quaaludes are consumed, so most of these characters have their tongues loosened and their nerves exposed.

Director Jon Gould Rubin and a strong cast, including Joanne Tucker, Tobias Segal and Billy Tangradi, carve out many visceral acting moments, giving "Little Doc" a compelling sense of authentic life, even if the overall drama peters out.

To get a taste of gritty 1970s New York, you still have to rent a movie, but "Little Doc" is at least a well-textured lookback in three dimensions.