"This is a weird story," says playwright Tommy Murphy. "Phone hacking leading to kidney donation is definitely weird."
Murphy, best known for his play and film Holding the Man, is talking about his latest play, Mark Colvin's Kidney, which is about to receive its world premiere at Belvoir. It tells the true story of Australian businesswoman Mary-Ellen Field, her spectacular fall from grace, and her decision to donate a kidney to the ailing ABC Radio National anchor Mark Colvin.
"It was an incredible act of loyalty and generosity," says actor Sarah Peirse, who is portraying Field in the play. "The whole play is amazingly life-affirming. It is a very moving story against extraordinary odds."
Field's life hit the headlines in 2005 when she was working in London as a business adviser to clients including supermodel Elle Macpherson. When details of Macpherson's marriage were leaked to the tabloids, fingers were pointed at Field, who had been advising Macpherson on her business brand.
Accusations flew and Macpherson questioned Field's state of mind. Urged to enter a rehab centre where she was misdiagnosed as an alcoholic and manic-depressive, her reputation was trashed.
We know now that Macpherson's voicemail was hacked by a private investigator contracted to Rupert Murdoch's News of the World and when the wider phone hacking scandal hit the headlines in 2010, Field took legal action against News Group Newspapers. She failed and costs – $124,000 – were awarded against her.
Through her ordeal, Field drew strength from the advice and support offered by several journalists, including Colvin, who had hunted her down via Twitter. It was at this point, in Field's darkest days, that she texted Colvin, then seriously ill and on dialysis, to offer him one of her kidneys.
"She woke up one morning and couldn't articulate why but she knew she was going to save his life," says Murphy, who interviewed Field and Colvin while writing his play. "She had never met him at that point. She sent the offer of a kidney via text message which he ignored and then when pressed, flatly refused. He was too worried about her health and her reasons for wanting to do it. He worried that is might be seen as some kind of coercion."
Field would not accept Colvin's declining of her offer. She pressed on. "When I first interviewed Mark, he said she battered down his defences and straight way I knew that would make a few good scenes," Murphy says. "Mary-Ellen feels she has a spiritual sense of things. Mark is a professional sceptic."
Field, says Peirse, is one of life's believers. It is her strength and her weakness. "She is tremendously upbeat and has great faith in social structures, in the judiciary, in the courts, the police and journalism. Any element that goes into maintaining and upholding community values, she is a believer in. What makes her journey so confronting is when she realises what she believes isn't necessarily so."
Six actors will play upwards of 20 characters in a production that cuts back and forth between London and Sydney. It falls to Helen Thomson to portray Elle Macpherson. "I think it will be a bit of a hoot playing Elle," she laughs.
"I mean, who could possibly look like her on stage? The fun is in trying to be this ridiculously gorgeous creature who is all limbs. You can't do her looks justice but you can give a sense of it.
"I'll be wearing a bit of heel."
Mark Colvin's Kidney runs from February 25 to April 2 at Belvoir, $37-$72.