'To win, you just need to believe in the rules. And Tessa loves to win, even when defending clients accused of sexual assault. Her court-ordained duty trumps her feminism. But when she finds herself on the other side of the bar, Tessa is forced into the shadows of doubt she’s so ruthlessly cast over other women.
'Winner of the 2018 Griffin Award, Prima Facie is an indictment of the Australian legal system’s failure to provide reliable pathways to justice for women in rape, sexual assault or harassment cases. It’s a work of fiction, but one that could have been ripped from the headlines of any paper, any day of the week, so common you could cry.
'Turning Sydney’s courts of law into a different kind of stage, Suzie Miller’s (Sunset Strip, Caress/Ache) taut, rapid-fire and gripping one-woman show exposes the shortcomings of a patriarchal justice system where it’s her word against his.
'Maybe we need a new system.'
Source: Griffin Theatre Company.
Prima Facie
( dir. Susanna White
)
United Kingdom (UK)
:
Bunya Productions
Participant Media
,
2023
26312281
2023
single work
film/TV
Prima Facie
Sydney
:
Picador
,
2023
26507082
2023
single work
novel
'Tessa is a thoroughbred. A young, brilliant barrister. She has worked her way up from a working-class background to be at the top of her game: defending, cross-examining and lighting up the shadows of doubt in any case. Her masterful line of questioning in the courtroom has netted Tessa win after win, freeing men accused of rape and sexual assault. As controversial as it is, this is her job - it's just about the facts and who can game the system.
'Working late one night, Tessa falls into a casual relationship with Julian, a coworker, an attorney who comes from an elite, wealthy family. A light-hearted affair, with a man she admires. She begins to wonder if perhaps there is a future for the two of them.
'One sickening night, though, Julian makes a choice and Tessa finds herself in a position countless women - one in three - have before her. And she's faced with a gut-wrenching, life-changing decision: will she take the stand to testify about her rape, with the full awareness that the system has not been built to protect her?
'Drawn from the internationally acclaimed play, Prima Facie is a propulsive, raw look at the price victims pay for speaking out and the system that sets them up to fail. With breakneck prose and a devastating emotional intensity, this is a novel for our times, by one of Australia's most important writers.' (Publication summary)
Produced by Griffin Theatre Company, 17 May to 22 June 2019.
Director: Lee Lewis.
Designer: Renée Mulder.
Sound Designer & Composer: Paul Charlier.
Cast: Kate Mulvany.
2019 Griffin production also presented at the Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre, 26 - 29 June 2019.
Revived by Griffin Theatre Company at the Stables, 2-12 September 2020.
Director: Lee Lewis.
Designer: Renée Mulder.
Lighting Designer: Trent Suidgeest.
Composer/Sound Designer: Paul Charlier.
Cast: Sheridan Harbridge.
Griffin Theatre Company production also planned for production by Malthouse Theatre (16 September - 4 October 2020), Queensland Theatre Company (Bille Brown Theatre, 8-31 October 2020), and HotHouse Theatre (3-7 November 2020).
Director: Lee Lewis.
Designer: Renée Mulder.
Lighting Designer: Trent Suidgeest.
Composer/Sound Designer: Paul Charlier.
Cast: Sheridan Harbridge.
Queensland Theatre Company production postponed, but not initially cancelled, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Initial plans were made to include it, Triple X, and The Holidays, in a 'mini-season' from October 2020.
Malthouse Theatre production cancelled as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
HotHouse Theatre production originally scheduled to continue as planned for November 2020. The production was later postoned to 11-14 August 2021. This rescheduled production was then postponed.
Presented by Queensland Theatre Company at the Bille Brown Theatre (as a Griffin Theatre Company production), 14 July - 14 August 2021.
Director: Lee Lewis.
Presented at the Harold Pinter Theatre, West End, London, 15 April - 18 June 2022.
Director: Justin Martin.
Cast: Jodie Comer.
This production later toured to Broadway, showing at the Golden Theatre for a stricly limited season from 23 April to 2 July 2023.
Presented by Melbourne Theatre Company, Arts Centre Melbourne, Fairfax Studio, 8 February - 25 March 2023.
Director: Lee Lewis.
Set and Costume Designer: Renee Mulder.
Lighting Designer: Trent Suidgeest.
Composer and Sound Designer: Paul Charlier.
Cast: Sheridan Harbridge (Tessa).
Presented by State Theatre Company of South Australia, Space Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre, 28 April - 13 May 2023.
Director: David Mealor.
Set and Costume Designer: Kathryn Sproul.
Lighting Designer: Nic Mollison.
Composer: Quincy Grant.
Sound Designer: Andrew Howard.
Cast: Caroline Craig.
Presented by Black Swan Theatre Company of WA at Heath Ledger Theatre, 1-21 July 2024.
Director: Kate Champion.
Set and Costume Designer: Bruce McKinven.
Composer and Sound Designer: Melanie Robison.
Presented by NZ Theatre Company at PumpHouse Theatre, Auckland, 18-22 June 2024.
Director: Michael Hurst.
Cast: Cassandra Woodhouse.
'Suzie Miller’s critically acclaimed ‘Prima Facie’ took home the awards for Best New Play and Best Actress at the 2023 Olivier Awards.'
'In April 2022, I found myself in the Harold Pinter Theatre on the West End, waiting to watch Jodie Comer star as protagonist Tessa Ensler in Suzie Miller’s Prima Facie. Surprised that after two years of on-and-off-again lockdowns due to COVID-19, I had finally made it all the way overseas to see this Australian play on the British stage, I asked the person next to me if they were excited to see the show. She was a young, twenty-something woman who smiled and said, “I can’t wait to see Jodie Comer in the flesh”. I asked what she knew about the play, and she told me a friend had given her a ticket because she was a Jodie Comer fan and that she did not know anything about the play before coming tonight. I was apprehensive on her behalf, knowing she was about to see a profound performance of a woman processing her own rape on stage, without forewarning. I realised in this moment how far this play had come in a brief period, from its first small run at the Stables Theatre in Sydney to London’s West End, in spite of a global pandemic. After the play ended, I turned to ask my neighbour what she thought. She was crying. After several moments, she praised Comer’s performance, launching into her thoughts on how powerful this play was, how profound an impact it could have for discussions of sexual assault.' (Introduction)
'The playwright’s one-woman legal drama has gone from Australia to the West End and now Broadway. She talks about juggling law and theatre, and longing for home'
'Suzie Miller’s powerful one-woman play Prima Facie explores how sexual assault victims are let down by the legal system.'
'Suzie Miller once believed in the law as a tool for justice, but over the course of her career, she came to recognise that it was ill-suited to sexual assault cases.' (Introduction)
'Since first being produced at Sydney’s Griffin Theatre in 2019, Suzie Miller’s play Prima Facie – a legal drama about consent and sexual violence – has become something of a phenomenon. Awarded Griffin Theatre’s playwriting prize in 2018, the subsequent production was enthusiastically received by audiences and critics alike. A 2022 West End production – propelled by the star power of Killing Eve’s Jodie Comer – garnered international acclaim, the National Theatre’s live screening of the production becoming one of 2022’s highest grossing British films. In 2023, the West End production moves to Broadway, while in Melbourne, the Melbourne Theatre Company’s six-week remounting of the original Griffin production – the production reviewed here – sold out before its first performance. If that wasn’t enough, a screen adaptation of the play is in the works, so too a novel, both helmed by Miller.' (Introduction)
'Suzie Miller once believed in the law as a tool for justice, but over the course of her career, she came to recognise that it was ill-suited to sexual assault cases.' (Introduction)
'The playwright’s one-woman legal drama has gone from Australia to the West End and now Broadway. She talks about juggling law and theatre, and longing for home'
'In April 2022, I found myself in the Harold Pinter Theatre on the West End, waiting to watch Jodie Comer star as protagonist Tessa Ensler in Suzie Miller’s Prima Facie. Surprised that after two years of on-and-off-again lockdowns due to COVID-19, I had finally made it all the way overseas to see this Australian play on the British stage, I asked the person next to me if they were excited to see the show. She was a young, twenty-something woman who smiled and said, “I can’t wait to see Jodie Comer in the flesh”. I asked what she knew about the play, and she told me a friend had given her a ticket because she was a Jodie Comer fan and that she did not know anything about the play before coming tonight. I was apprehensive on her behalf, knowing she was about to see a profound performance of a woman processing her own rape on stage, without forewarning. I realised in this moment how far this play had come in a brief period, from its first small run at the Stables Theatre in Sydney to London’s West End, in spite of a global pandemic. After the play ended, I turned to ask my neighbour what she thought. She was crying. After several moments, she praised Comer’s performance, launching into her thoughts on how powerful this play was, how profound an impact it could have for discussions of sexual assault.' (Introduction)
'Suzie Miller’s critically acclaimed ‘Prima Facie’ took home the awards for Best New Play and Best Actress at the 2023 Olivier Awards.'
