“It’s was really weird in some ways, as I’ve known Sally for about thirty years”, I said to my friend as talked about the play “Stop Girl” at Belvoir Street Theatre. We had parallel careers for a while. I worked at 2WEB Bourke, and she replaced me. I moved to the ABC in Renmark, and she replaced me there, too. In the play there’s a joke about working in the media at Renmark. “I heard you laugh” my friend said. The play, “Stop Girl” is based on the life experiences of ABC reporter and presenter, Sally Sara.

In particular, it focuses on her time as a foreign correspondent. Working for the ABC, she had a number of overseas correspondent stints, including South Africa and Afghanistan.

Sally’s reports from Aghanistan were terrific. She reported on both the best and worst of times there. But as the play reveals, her time there wasn’t without personal consequence. Though the experience for those who lived there cannot be underestimated, it’s worth noting the impact on those who report on these events too. As a reporter, you get to know people, you get to understand their stories on a personal level more than other expats might.

I can’t begin to understand the experience of living there, and not just “flying in and flying out” as a reporter. Though Sally and I had similar journalistic origins, we went off in different directions. We see each other at work, and it’s Bourke that we most commonly talk and reminisce about.

Despite probably “over-thinking” things, I enjoyed the play. The theatre was close to capacity, which was good to see. Definitely worth seeing.

Supernova

The other bit of culture I experienced yesterday was the movie, “Supernova”. I’m a huge fan of Colin Firth, and so when I saw that he was “playing gay” again, I knew I had to attend.

His performance in the film, “A Single Man” is subime. Actually, it’s one of my all time favourite films.

As I’ve previously blogged

“You’re not supposed to start crying at the start of a film are you? Normally, you’re supposed to have a cry at the end, undergo the catharsis, and then return to life. That wasn’t the case with “A Single Man”, one of a few films I watched on the flight home.The opening sequence, where George (played by Colin Firth) finds out about the death in a car accident of his partner, Jim, and of his reaction brought me to tears. It’s a beautiful piece in a beautiful film, which I enjoyed very much. It’s also a film I could relate strongly too. When you’ve loved someone. I mean really loved someone. And you’ve lost them. The agony that you feel for a long time remains strong. And you could see in the way Colin firth played George, and the way he reacted, he was obviously drawing on some of his own deep emotions.”

I didn’t feel as passionately “involved” in this film. The plotline is around the experience of two older gay men, as one of them has rapidly evolving dementia.

The thing which got to me was the discussion around suicide. The character with dementia has planned his demise with the same drug that a friend committed suicide with a couple of years ago. Seeing that made me think “this is real”. Already I’ve lost one family member to dementia, and another is going down that path right now, soon to be in a nursing home. And undoubtedly I’ll need to face this again.