Strong is the New Pretty: Suzie Miller’s new play celebrates the women who fought for a place in AFL

Morgan Roberts Kicking off the Brisbane Festival, Suzie Miller’s new play Strong is the New Pretty celebrates the blood, sweat and tears that helped create the Australian Football League Women’s (AFLW) competition.

The world premiere at Brisbane’s Playhouse theatre captivated the audience with incisive observations about the difficulties faced by the players, coaches and advocates who worked to secure that first professional season of the AFLW.

The play is loosely based on the extraordinary story of three central figures in AFLW history.

The first female AFL Commissioner Sam Mostyn is reiminaged as the dynamic lawyer Alison Newtown, played by Lucy Bell.

Tara Morice creates a fiesta as women’s football development manager called Jane Hooper, based on former AFL female football development manager Jan Cooper.

And Bec Goddard, the first female coach of the Adelaide Crows, is transposed to Bev Heath, played by Amber McMahon.

Through blood, sweat and tears The show opens with a total blackout filled with the sounds of children playing football.

We hear some boys, who are clearly excluding a little girl.

The sequence ends with her heart-wrenching plea: “kick it to me!” The play is told through (often witty) monologues, supported by an energetic ensemble that fills an enormous black empty stage.

The opening scene puts the three central characters, Alison, Jane and Bev, in spotlights downstage.

The ensemble is placed upstage, behind microphones, where they act as a distorted Greek chorus showing the misogyny women face from the AFL hierarchy and within society more broadly.

We see standout performances by Bell – whose Alison faces sexual discrimination as a lawyer but uses this experience to strategise towards gender equality on the field – and Morice – whose down-to-earth Jane shows what a once-excluded little girl can achieve with patience and determination.

The characters forge on through adverse conditions and patriarchal barriers, such as unrealistic time constraints for training, being called “a bunch of lesbians”, and a last-minute change of venue for the Grand Final.

The ensemble cast members leap between characters and key historic moments.