Schoolgirls at truck stops : tracing place, things, bodies and fictions

Picture an empty truck stop at the dusty side of a highway in western Sydney, a picnic table, a magpie, two girls sitting on the table smoking, laughing, talking, trucks pulling in at the other end. Imagine how the affective force of this dramaturgical scene travels beyond the space and time of theatre and script to assemble with other bodies and places. This paper is an exploration of this scenario. It is an experiment with a different way of reading a text – a play titled Truck Stop by Lachlan Philpott that opened in June 2012 near where I work in western Sydney, and which is set in St Marys, the suburb next door to the university campus where I teach aspiring secondary English teachers.