Prima Facie

Barrister and prolific playwright Suzie Miller has written a full courtroom battle delivered by just one woman.  Sheridan Harbridge is Tessa, from a working class background but striding success in a privileged world as a criminal defence barrister.  She knows this game.  

She even knows how to play the naïve female interrogator, to induce a confident plaintiff to let run – perhaps a woman alleging sexual  assault – till she trips herself up in confused memories and brings doubt to her charge. 

Tessa is riding high, until an office one night stand is repeated, and then becomes a violent rape.  Defying her usual “legal not emotional instinct”, she charges the man, her career path stumbles, and she is recast by the eventual court case as the wounded, perhaps malicious, victim.

Miller’s 100 minute monologue is rich in witty empathic details of moment and character. It runs like a thriller and finely builds Tessa’s contrasting experiences  of winner and victim into a powerful demand for a better justice system. 

Indeed, Prima Facie is itself an articulate and satisfyingly theatrical case to show that, in sexual harassment and assault, the system is a boy’s game ossified by old codes of logic and gender prejudice, and it fails women. Miller even orchestrates the jury to withdraw and gives Tessa the platform to put that case – it’s arguably an unnecessary, certainly repetitive declaration.

Otherwise, Prima Facie is word perfect and Harbridge makes each one count.  Mostly atop a small cube podium, alone with a smart office chair, and surrounded by a sea of corporate  carpet, Harbridge by speedy gesture and vocal variety companionably suggests a full cast, from Tessa’s lives at home and in court. 

Under Lee’s Lewis’ direction, every moment is lived and we are with Harbridge throughout.  With a flick of her head, settings and times change, aided by Trent Suidgeest’s subtle lighting shifts on designer Renee Mulder’s walls behind.  And Paul Charlier’s sound is quietly forbidding. The next day I had all those places still painted in my imagination.

As long as there are actors as good as Harbridge  – and this justice issue still burns – this outstanding play should have many re-tellings.

Martin Portus

Buy the play script at the Book Nook Performing arts Book Shop.