The emotional and physical toll of a performance like this is, and the truths it brings to light, is akin to a public service. I kept wondering to myself how Comer can do this night after night for ten weeks. One of the wonders of live theater is the chance to see something approaching miraculous up close and personal. She addresses the complexity of consent, while making space for the trauma Tess has to deal with just to get out her story and get on with her life. Suzie Miller, herself a former lawyer, takes this to task in the powerful final third of Prima Facie.
While the movement has revealed the prevalence of sexual assault, it's also revealed the limits of the law when it comes to holding the assaulters accountable.
The civilized society that Tess initially strives to maintain has been attempting to reckon with sexual assault, with one powerful catalyst being the #MeToo movement. The result is a night of theater that not only speaks to the culture but shifts it as well. And of course there's Miller's script, stubbornly sober then searingly passionate. She is given tremendous aid by her director Justin Martin, set and costume designer Miriam Buether, lighting designer Natasha Chivers, sound designers Ben and Max Ringham, and from a score by Rebecca Lucy Taylor.
Even as she recognizes the tactics being used against her in court, the very same tactics she had used countless times before, she begins to doubt herself, to doubt her memory of the events. She simply, starkly sees herself as just another part of the system and everyone has to do their part in the system in order to maintain a civilized society.Īll her legal knowledge and expertise doesn't keep Tess from getting caught up in the system. "If a few guilty people get off then it's because the job was not done well enough by the prosecutor and the police." "The law is there to protect everyone. Protect those who accuse, protect those who are accused," she says. While she sympathizes with the victims she cross-examines, she knows she has to poke holes in their stories in order to exonerate her clients. Never concerned whether or not they're guilty, or that her clients might have chosen her as a woman to curry sympathy in court, she's there to do a job. She makes a name for her self defending men accused of sexual assault.
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