Kicking goals: Suzie Miller’s AFLW tribute makes its mark
Suzie Miller is the hottest playwright on the planet right now and she chose Brisbane Festival for the world premiere of her latest play.
September is the perfect time for Brisbane Festival’s world premiere Strong is the New Pretty to make its mark.
Against the backdrop of footy finals season, this 80-minute play celebrating the birth of AFLW – the code’s professional female competition – hits the sweet spot between arts and sport.
Strong is the New Pretty chronicles a journey of women conquering adversity, told by a team of female performers and key creatives. On top of factual detail and composite characters depicting influential changemakers, the production employs an entertaining mix of humour, heart, irony and poignancy that produce a wide appeal beyond gender – or being an AFL fan.
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There’s no doubt followers of the game will identify an extra level of enjoyment through specific references and the imaginative ways the iconic red Sherrin football and players are depicted in flight.
But that recognition matters less than championing the fact that women are now able to pursue their dream of playing for their favourite team instead of only being a spectator – like so many generations before them. As “a sporty girl” who’d “grown-up in AFL-crazy Melbourne”, playwright Suzie Miller was acutely aware of that limitation.
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Of course, these circumstances are representational of numerous others in which women face inequality or disparity.
Tapping into those broader social parallels is the unifying and uplifting core of Strong is the New Pretty that links it with former lawyer Miller’s internationally acclaimed hits Prima Facie and RBG: of Many, One.
The opening scenes deftly highlight this. On a bare stage a Sherrin is spot lit like a holy grail. Its magical allure is captured in reverential voiceover comments. This is punctuated by a girl’s plaintive plea, one that’s bound to strike a familiar chord with many grown-ups in the audience – “kick it to me”.
The play’s three unnamed lead characters then appear, each addressing the audience. The “godmother” of women’s AFL (Tara Morice) is flanked by the lawyer who can’t be heard in court because she’s wearing trousers (Lucy Bell) and the coach (Amber McMahon) who leads an all-male federal police unit but can only get a gig leading junior boys.
That experience will help Bell’s character play a pivotal role in dismantling the brick wall standing in the way of the women’s game when she becomes the AFL’s first female commissioner. The role’s real-life inspiration? Governor-General Sam Mostyn.
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The production registers as a team effort, with each element contributing equally to its success
One could confidently say that the Godmother is based on inaugural female inductee to the Australian Football Hall of Fame, Debbie Lee, while the coach of the first AFLW premiers whose journey is depicted here shares similarities with Bec Goddard, then an AFP superintendent.
The production registers as a team effort, with each element contributing equally to its success as a whole. Sarah Giles’ direction maximises the impact of bold design components, balancing cartoonish extremes with the grounded authenticity required in personal reflections.
Legacy and social media are characters themselves, sharing and shaping the story into a splashy package chronicled in headlines, chapters, commentary and graphics.
Microphones and portable lighting feature as journalistic tools – and also capture cabaret-style caricatures through a five-member chorus delivering sound effects and exaggerated vocalisations.
Kelley Abbey’s clever movement direction reflects her stature as an outstanding choreographer. Stylised rather than showcasing athleticism, it ranges from emulating football plays in an amusing mix of slow motion and full speed, to gestural parodies and full-out retro dance moves, to recreating that 2019 Tayla Harris kick (and projecting some of the abhorrent online comments that followed). Surprisingly missing, though, were some specky marks.
All the men in the story are played by women, mostly as light-hearted parodies. The loudest laugh came from the man seated behind me.
The ensemble also portrays Crows players and a women’s sport journalist in brief but key vignettes.
Although I felt we did not get as much insight into Tara Morice’s Godmother as the other lead characters, Strong is the New Pretty symbolises the impact of incremental collaboration and collective achievement, which opening night’s packed house acknowledged enthusiastically with a standing ovation.
Strong is the New Pretty continues at the Playhouse, QPAC, until September 19.
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