Madelaine Nunn’s W opens this week at the Old Fitz, (her second sports play to debut this year after Shoelace Chaser at Melbourne Theatre Company), and it’s an impressive feat of independent theatre making.

Madelaine Nunn’s W at The Old Fitz. Photo © Phil Erbacher

The play is entirely set in an ALFW locker room over the course of one season, as we sneak an insight into the players’ pre and post-game rituals and disputes. Although we don’t see a pitch, Poppy Lynch’s movement direction (combined with Clare Hennessy’s pulsating sound design), delivers an energetic physicality to the stage despite the tight Fitz space. Just like sports, this is great to watch up-close. Credit must be given to Meg Anderson (set) and Luna Yuet Yee Ng (lighting) who deliver an elevated design world, achieving well beyond the standard of most independent theatre.

Rachel Chant has a good ear for pacy dialogue, and directs a charismatic ensemble of players (Celesté Cortes-Davis, Edyll Ismail, Ally Morgan, Shannon Ryan, Grace Smibert) and coach (TV star Danielle Cormack).

Nunn challenges herself with scope, presenting a script that tries to cover a range of issues affecting elite women’s sports: sexism, racism, mental health, prospective motherhood, tensions in queer relationships, pay gap debates, and the pressure to be a public figure. Some plot lines work better than others, and the storytelling can be unsubtle at times.

Madelaine Nunn’s W at The Old Fitz. Photo © Phil Erbacher

The strongest arc by far explores the complex feelings that captain Rosie (Ryan) harbours towards cocky teen star Casey (Cortes-Davis). The depiction of an older player who fought tirelessly for female athletes to be recognised, only to age out of elite sport just as that recognition comes, is genuinely compelling.

The Australian sporting focus gives W effective specificity, but the core conflict Nunn and Chant depict – younger women taking for granted rights and opportunities that older women never had – has widespread appeal, and women of all generations will get something out of this show.

W is a contemporary Australian crowd-pleaser, and I look forward to what Madelaine Nunn and New Ghosts Theatre Company do next.

W plays at the Old Fitzroy Theatre, Woolloomooloo, until 14 June.