But at what price? Studies by the American Journal of Psychiatry have shown that war correspondents suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) at almost the same rate as veterans. Only last year, BBC reporter Fergal Keane stepped down as Africa correspondent for the network, citing PTSD developed after thirty years spent reporting on death and disaster. It caused waves in an industry where such admissions are still frowned upon.

Now ABC journalist Sally Sara is sharing her story in her first play, Stop Girl, a Belvoir St Theatre production directed by Anne-Louise Sarks. Sara certainly has the experience. An eight-time Walkley Award finalist, she reported from more than thirty countries during her long career as a war correspondent with the ABC. In 2012 she suffered a breakdown after returning from Afghanistan. She started writing Stop Girl four years later, anxious to recast her horrible experiences into something more positive. We can be glad she did. Stop Girl is a thought-provoking and extraordinarily vulnerable piece of writing.

We meet the play’s protagonist, Suzie (Sheridan Harbridge), in Kabul, huddled under the bedspread recording a story to camera while bombs land outside. Like the landscape around her, she is tough and battle-scarred, her matter-of-fact demeanour and sardonic humour a useful foil for the horrific details that are par for the course in a job like hers. ‘Always change your shoes after a bombing,’ she breezily tells her friend Bec (Amber McMahon), a fellow journalist sent out to profile her. Not surprisingly, Bec is horrified.  

Amber McMahon and Sheridan Harbridge in Stop Girl (Brett Boardman)

In Afghanistan, the situation is life-threatening, yet Suzie is a woman completely in control. This self-possession falters on her return to Sydney. She’s nervous in supermarkets and ducks at the sound of a starting gun. She puts on a brave face for Bec and her worried mother (Toni Scanlan), but it’s clear that she is disintegrating. She has been given a number for counselling if things get bad, but nobody picks up. When eventually they do, the psychologist (Deborah Galanos) isn’t much help. ‘While we’re [overseas], we’re treated as heroes,’ says Suzie bitterly. ‘But when we break down, they don’t want to know.’

The only person who might understand is Atal (Mansoor Noor), her Afghani producer, who is seeking asylum in Australia. Atal is the only person who knows what it was like, who has seen the things she has seen. But he doesn’t want to go back. Unlike Suzie, for whom the decision to go out into the world and witness its atrocities was a career choice, for Atal it was simply his life. He wants to look forward, wants to look forward to finding a wife and a family far away from his homeland.

Sara’s sensitive writing draws out these dichotomies beautifully. It’s evident that she has thought long and hard about the ethics and privilege inherent in Suzie’s position; she brings them to light with a light touch and an ever-present sense of humour. But it’s difficult not to feel that old habits die hard when it comes to speaking to her audience. Sara’s writing is restrained to the point of being over-controlled: it’s as if she wants to show us what the experience of being a war correspondent is like, while keeping us at arm’s length. True to form, she doesn’t want to let us suffer too much.

It’s a feeling that is compounded by the play’s staging. Sarks directs on a blank white slab with minimal props (stage design by Robert Cousins) and barely-there sound and lighting (Stefan Gregory and Paul Jackson respectively) that keeps on the focus on Suzie’s emotional turmoil. When so much of the play is inward-facing and implosive, such a bare-bones approach feels like another attempt to separate us from what is happening. Keeping your distance might work when you are a reporter trying to stay sane in the face of unimaginable horror, but it doesn’t necessarily work in a theatre. We want proximity, emotion. We want something to grasp. We can see that Suzie is in tremendous pain, but the play holds back at every point from letting us feel it.

Sally Sara and Sheridan Harbridge (Brett Boardman)

As Suzie, Harbridge is perfectly cast, balancing a larrikin charm and humour with an underlying brittleness and intensity that come to the fore as things start to fall apart. The rest of the cast put in similarly nuanced performances, gentle and supportive of Suzie one minute, giving her a few harsh truths the next. Like all good journalists (and good playwrights), Sara has an eye for creating the small moments that reveal the emotional truth of a situation. In a beautiful scene towards the end between Suzie and her mother, it becomes clear that it is the people around Suzie who hold the key to her recovery. Despite everything she has seen and experienced, she will be all right.

It’s a credit to Sally Sara that a play that stems from such dark places can feel so life-affirming. Real life may not be a war zone, but it still needs to be dealt with, and sometimes healing is as much about facing up to the present as it is to the past. The word ‘brave’ is chronically overused when it comes to people sharing their stories, but Stop Girl feels like an act of generosity from Sally Sara. It’s a privilege to witness it.

Stop Girl continues at Belvoir St Theatre until 25 April 2021. Performance attended: March 24.

This project is supported by the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund.