Stop Girl

Image: Sheridan Harbridge

In the year 2000, the ABC sent two young reporters to Indonesia to cut their teeth as the second in charge reporter in the Jakarta Bureau.

One was Sally Sara – who went on to become a celebrated foreign correspondent and now an accomplished playwright. The other was myself.

Sally had a dull time in Indonesia – that means nothing much happened – whereas I was in an earthquake, met the President of Indonesia and covered a riot. However, when I got home my two-year-old son did not (at first) recognise me and, not having enjoyed the experience very much, never applied for an overseas job.

Image: Amber McMahon

Sally was sent by the ABC to Africa and her later experience as a correspondent during the height of the Taliban insurgency is the basis for this play, and how she coped with the trauma when she returned to Sydney.

Hearing the lead character - Suzie - recite to her psychologist the catalogue of events which she covered in Afghanistan, it was striking that the job of being a war correspondent can be ghastly.

Image: Deborah Galanos

Whilst some overseas reporters get to cover royal weddings and Olympic Games, Suzie turns up to one suicide bombing after another.

The raw intensity of this experience was brought to the stage when the drama opens. A bomb has gone off in a supermarket and Suzie heads out to cover the story.  Suzie (Sheridan Harbridge) brings along her friend Bec (Amber McMahon). There they meet her local Afghan fixer and camera operator Atal (Mansoor Noor).

The calm process and rituals of reporting contrast sharply with the scene before them. We hear that the situation must be sanitised for public consumption.

Image: Sheridan Harbridge

Suzie returns home and the chaos of Afghanistan is juxtaposed with the affluence of Sydney’s eastern suburbs. Atal is now in Australia attempting to become a permanent resident. He can’t believe what people leave on the kerbside to throw away.

Flashbacks to Afghanistan take Suzie to the brink – particularly a visit to a hospital. Suzie has intense sessions with a psychologist (Deborah Galanos) and resists help from her salt of the earth mother (Toni Scanlan).

Image: Sheridan Harbridge and Amber McMahon.

The skills of the actors, particularly Sheridan Harbridge – and the authenticity of the emotional journey which Sally Sara wrote about - made this a gripping night in the theatre which drew me in.

It is not all serious – there are plenty of good jokes. Tongues are still wagging about one gag. A journalist at the Walkley Awards is described as “a piece of work who has never broken a story”. Now who could that be?

David Spicer

Photographer: Brett Boardman

Image: Sheridan Harbridge and Mansoor Noor.