★★★★☆
Some stories stay with you well after the actors have had their last bow – not simply because it was a performance that entertained, but because it was about something that mattered.
In Australian playwright Suzie Miller’s world premiere, Strong is the New Pretty, she reveals both the struggles and triumphs women faced leading to the formation of Australia’s national professional Australian rules football competition for female players, the AFLW.
Suzie Miller is known for successful productions such as RBG: Of Many, One, Prima Facie and Inter Alia. This play tells the inspiring story of how an idea grew into a major part of the sporting world.
Miller joins forces with multi-award-winning director Sarah Giles (The Importance of Being Earnest, No Pay? No Way!), and now they are fielding a brilliant lineup of eight players: Lucy Bell, Amy Hack, Amy Ingram, Edyll, Amber McMahon, Tara Morice, Nyasha Ogden and Contessa Treffone.
The play begins. We see a lone football, illuminated by a spotlight in the darkness of the stage. The audience doesn’t know it yet, but it’s more than football. It is symbolic of the exclusion, the discrimination and the harassment that had been going on for years in women’s sport.
We hear from beyond a young girl’s voice calling out, “Kick it to me!” The ball is not passed to her. Exclusion.
We are then introduced to three of the main characters, Bev (Amber McMahon), Alison (Lucy Bell) and Jane (Tara Morice), and the stellar performances by the actors who play them. We will learn throughout the course of the play that each character will go on to have a significant role in the formation of the AFLW.
Bev, a coach; Alison, the AFL commissioner; and Jane, the president. The three bounce off each other, telling their personal stories. In the background, the rest of the cast deepen our understanding with their well-executed comments and sound effects.
A digital display board guides the audience through the two main parts of the play, indicating changes in setting, dates and events moving from 1993 to 2017.
As the play moves through time and space, a women’s team is formed – the Adelaide Crows – and the women eventually get to play. We hear “Kick it to me!” again, and the dream is being realised.
We meet Susanna, a reporter, whose clever mimicking of ‘reporter speak’ leaves the audience tittering. In the background, we hear derogatory comments about the women players, “Chicks should stay in the kitchen,” and offensive slurs against the women players flash up on the digital display. Discrimination and harassment.
The simple use of a few props, such as footballs, lights, and cameras, are utilised in a beautifully choreographed performance that appears effortless. The actors’ movements are fluid.
Moving on and off stage, from performing punchy dance moves to music and fast shifts in position to acting out the AFL Grand Final in slow motion amplifies the emotion of the moment.
Their strength, their determination, the grit of these women working together in this pivotal moment in Australia’s sporting history.
The play concludes. We see the lone football, illuminated by the spotlight again. The audience now knows it’s more than football. It was symbolic of the exclusion, the discrimination and the harassment that had been going on for years in women’s sport.
But now it represents a story about the women who worked together to bring about change and a revolution.
Finally, we hear it again: the repetition of “Kick to me!” and the sound of young girls playing football, thus successfully framing the narrative and giving the audience a satisfying sense of a story coming full circle and to fruition, that women are at long last given the ball. Women are at long last given the opportunity to participate.
Strong Is The New Pretty runs to 12 December at the Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House.
Tickets: https://www.sydneytheatre.com.au/whats-on/2026/productions/strong-is-the-new-pretty
Website: https://strongisthenewprettyplay.com.au/
Socials: https://www.instagram.com/sitnp_play/ and https://www.instagram.com/sydneytheatreco/
Photo credits: Prudence Upton
Strong is the New Pretty is a Brisbane Festival, Sydney Theatre Company and Trish Wadley Productions co-production, originally commissioned by Trish Wadley Productions.
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