Warning: please note this play and review contain themes including sexual assault. If you require help, call 1800 737 732
Premiering in 2019 at the Stables Theatre in Sydney, Australian-British playwright Suzie Miller’s Prima Facie began its award-winning run through the Australian theatre circuit, before touching down at the holy ground of stage performances, Britain’s West End, in 2022.
The dramatic one-woman play saw Jodie Comer fiercely takes on the role of Tessa, which led Comer to be the recipient of Best Actress at the Laurence Olivier Awards (of which Prima Facie was nominated for five, winning Best New Play as well), and a Tony Award for her reprisal of the role on Broadway.
Following it’s run in West End, a filmed performance of Prima Facie released in theatres around the world by National Theatre live and is now returning to cinemas for an encore appearance, allowing audiences to experience (or return to) Miller’s relentless and uncompromising play, featuring an energetic, tour-de-force performance from Comer.
Tessa (Comer) is a criminal defence barrister who specialises in defending men who are accused of sexual assault. Tessa takes immense pride in her work, and her ability to follow the letter of the law, which ultimately states that the evidence brought forward by witnesses in these types of cases must be absolute crystal clear in order for a conviction to be secured.
However, Tessa must battle with the exact laws and rules she has upheld for her entire career when she is assaulted herself. Patriarchal powers, the burden of proof, morality, and interpretation of the truth all collide as the law she once relied on for career victories, becomes her biggest barrier in claiming back justice for herself, and for all the women who have been in her position.
From the opening moments of Prima Facie, Jodie Comer absolutely commands the audience’s attention with one of the most powerful performances ever put to the stage. The energy that Comer injects into Tessa as the young, brilliant lawyer she is, explaining her love for winning and upbringing in the UK’s working class combining to create this ruthless barrister persona, is electric and maintained for the play’s entire runtime of over 100 minutes.
Tessa is as brash as she is likeable, never once pulling punches on how hard she’s worked to get where she is, often vocalising how good she is at using the law against itself to gain convictions, despite the moral quandary hanging over her head, which as she states, is often brought on when people ask her how she can defend “guilty” men for a job – which she will reiterate, is a job. But Miller’s play fleshes out Tessa with scenes taking place at her family’s house, featuring conversations with her mother and brothers that give a full-rounded idea that Tessa is ultimately a genuine person who just wants to be the best at what she does. She’s not the problem. The law and the burden of proof to convict those who break it, is indeed the problem.
A lit-up binder filled set, with barrister tables in the centre that get shifted around by Comer throughout the performance, seamlessly and incredibly take the story through the barracks of the courthouse, Tessa’s family home, nightclubs, the fateful room where Tessa’s assault takes place, and in one incredible moment where Comer’s powerful performance combines with on set rain, the back of a taxi in which the horrific realisation of what has happened dawns upon Tessa in a confronting, heartbreaking, and essential scene that truly propels the play into its most compelling scenes.
Prima Facie is ferociously entertaining, mainly due to Tessa’s likeability and Comer’s electric performance, but it’s also intentionally challenging and uncomfortable, and it’s supposed to be. Miller’s play holds a mirror up to the law, and to us as those who rely on it for the safekeeping of humanity and challenges the insanity of how much burden of proof relies on the accuser, and how easily the law is designed to negate their horrifying experience. The traumatic recollections of events in which, as the play states, 1 in 3 women will experience, usually are repressed due to the brutality endured having to be recounted in front of a jury, only to be openly shot down by the defence Tessa once was a part of, creates a fascinating drama, but one that will spark more conversation that give definitive answers. And for a play to do that, while be thoroughly entertaining, is a true masterclass in writing and acting.
Prima Facie encore screenings are playing in select theatres from September 20.
