The Rundown
If you fell in love with Jodie Comer’s ruthless and cunning Villanelle from Killing Eve, there’s more than a touch about the psychopathic assassin in Prima Facie, written by Suzie Miller, now playing at the Golden Theatre.
Comer plays Tessa Ensler, a slick criminal defense barrister (or attorney) in Britain who has built a career defending men accused of sexual assault—and helping them walk free. But her cocky attitude about the legal system’s propensity for protecting the guilty and putting the victim on trial ends up backfiring when she is raped by a colleague who is equally familiar with the murky byways of their profession.
No Tea, No Shade
Prima Facie has been touted as a hot ticket, with rave reviews in Sydney and London before its Broadway run. After attending a packed matinee, which ended with a standing ovation and the woman seated in front of me simultaneously sobbing and applauding, I’d have to agree it’s worthy of the accolades.
The reason for this is largely Comer’s mind-blowing performance which sees her digest, embody, and explicate rich reams of complex material penned by Australian playwright and ex-lawyer Miller, in a script at the heart of which lies the argument that survivors of sexual assault are first violated by the perpetrator, and second by the law. If you’ve heard this truism before, you probably haven’t heard it from the mouth of a lawyer who survived sexual assault. That is the hat trick of Prima Facie.
Equally revelatory is Comer proving Miller’s case. “Prima facie” is a legal term denoting evidence that, at first impression, is credible enough to support a trial and conviction beyond a reasonable doubt. Reviews will exhaust superlatives trying to describe the spectacle of Comer’s working-class young Liverpudlian who has beaten the odds (one in three fail law school) to sport a horsehair wig, a fancy suit, and armor of intimidating legalese only to find herself become another statistic (one in three women are victims of sexual assault). Like the film Tár, which also explored the Icarian fall from grace of a stratospherically successful working-class woman, Prima Facie mines a fictional female trailblazer to expose the endemic flaws of the patriarchy.
Miller weaves a compelling and sophisticated argument that dramatizes the problematic paradigm of criminal law as it applies to sexual assault cases. When Tessa’s body of evidence is pinned to her traumatized body, her earlier assertion that “Your liberty, your life is in our hands” is proven true.
The Last Word
Fluidly directed by Justin Martin and with an eye-catching set and costume design by Miriam Buether, including a penultimate rain scene, pulsating sound design by Ben and Max Ringham, and music by Rebecca Lucy Taylor (aka Self Esteem), the description of one woman show doesn’t do it justice. Prima Facie is a solo drama that asks: What if someone who has all the answers and plays by all the rules falls foul of the system?
Whatever you think of so-called #MeToo narratives or blanket assumptions that we must believe all self-proclaimed survivors at ‘face value,’ Prima Facie is one of those miraculous performances that marry the anxieties triggered by headlines with live performance. Impeccable, aside from a necessary tip into preachy in its closing argument, it’s not only a win for women. It’s a win for the theater.
Prima Facie plays on Broadway at the Golden Theatre through June 18.
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