If you have not already heard the name Suzie Miller, then take note of it now. Miller is the playwright of Prima Facie; a provocative, challenging and emotive play about injustice within sexual assault law.
The one-woman production centres Tessa, a fierce new criminal law barrister who loves the so-called ‘game’ of law and manipulates it to her advantage. Tessa recounts the story of growing up working class and advancing despite all odds, achieving her dream of reaching the courtroom. Her ruthless approach to law makes her successful in the game until she is cruelly exposed to the systemically patriarchal ideals that form the criminal justice system and silence the victims of sexual assault.
Miller studied as a human rights and criminal defence lawyer before becoming a playwright, saying that “years of practising [...] increased my feminist questioning and interrogation of the legal system, because while I firmly believe that ‘innocent until proven guilty’ is the bedrock of human rights, it always felt that its application in sexual assault cases served to undermine rather than to uphold any real fairness”.
Having watched this play, Miller and a stellar performance by Jodie Comer expose the reality of victims of sexual assault not only denied justice, but disbelieved entirely and broken down by the system.
[...] Jodie Comer’s theatre debut was nothing short of perfection. Her ability to command attention from beginning to end is astounding, much less her stamina for the endurance
I had not previously seen a one-woman production, and admittedly believed that it would perhaps feel very much like a seemingly never-ending lecture. How wrong could I have been in regard to this production, where Jodie Comer’s theatre debut was nothing short of perfection. Her ability to command attention from beginning to end is astounding, much less her stamina for the endurance of a play like this one, which has the emotive range of a Shakespearean tragedy. Comer was the only person on stage but by no means the only character: her ability to transform her body and voice to play out each character in her story is remarkable. Her acting utilises the carefully crafted words of Miller and has the audience questioning systems of law that lead to the silencing of victims of sexual assault.
‘Prima Facie’ itself is a Latin legal term, translating to ‘on the face of it’. Throughout the play, Miller highlights how — on the face of it — the legal system has long been veiled by the facade of fairness whilst also exposing the truth of the unspoken, unbelieved victims of assault. Miller found the confidence to produce this work in the wake of the #MeToo movement, where the courageous voices of sexual assault victims in mainstream media came forward, producing an influx of stories and harsh realities of power dynamics within the industry. This allowed Miller and other dramatists and artists to include this movement in their work, and unveil the harsh truth of systemic orders that perpetuate abuse.
Whilst I would recommend this play for its seamless acting and beautiful writing, it cannot come without a warning. This play portrays the unfiltered raw reality of a victim of sexual assault and the distressing way the law reframes their experience under the guise of justice — it is by no means an