Can you have a compelling case of “he said, she said” without the “he said”? Or to identify the dilemma raised by Suzie Miller’s new play, Prima Facie, more specifically, can an accusation of sexual assault be fairly judged if we hear only the plaintiff’s side, and not the defendant’s?
These are far more delicate and complicated questions than they were even a few years ago, of course. In the long overdue reckoning brought by the #MeToo movement, “Believe women” became a mantra, as high-profile men representing all manner of professions and backgrounds were held accountable for oppressive, abusive and in some cases criminal behavior. A pamphlet folded into the playbill for Prima Facie cites a number of disturbing statistics; Tessa Ensler, the one-act drama’s sole character, mentions another.
“One in every three women are sexually assaulted,” declares Tessa, a whipsmart, fast-rising young barrister—the play is set in the U.K., where it premiered last year—who by this point, after a date that went terribly wrong, has become the complainant in a rape trial. The irony of this development is enhanced by the fact that Tessa, played in an astonishing stage debut by the BAFTA and Emmy Award-winning actress Jodie Comer (who introduced the part across the pond), has built her reputation largely by securing acquittals for men arrested for such crimes.
[Read Frank Scheck’s ★★★★☆ review here.]
Addressing the judge directly, out of the jury’s presence, Tessa asserts, “The law of sexual assault spins on the wrong axis. A woman’s experience of sexual assault does not fit the male-defined system of truth.” She admits, “Now I know that when a woman says ‘no,’ when her actions say ‘no,’ it is not a subtle, unreadable thing at all.”
It’s a compelling argument, and Comer, under Justin Martin’s vigorous but sensitive direction, makes it soar and sting. Best known for her witty, searing portrayal of a sociopathic Russian assassin on the television series “Killing Eve,” the actress captures both Tessa’s manic energy—which dominates the first half of the play, as the character documents her whirlwind rise from a working-class upbringing to law school at Cambridge and a bright career, with a breakneck pace that she clearly relishes—and the vulnerability and self-doubt that consume her after the incident.
Miller, who was herself an attorney before turning full-time to playwriting, makes the technical elements of both Tessa’s job and her personal legal ordeal accessible and engaging throughout, and draws the latter in complex and dramatically rich detail, which is enhanced by the thumping electronica of Rebecca Lucy Taylor’s original score. Tessa has been assaulted by a colleague, a man with whom she had previously had consensual sex—once on a separate occasion, and once on the evening in question, during which both have a lot to drink.
We never meet the accused, Julian, though Tessa makes him sound very appealing initially, and concedes she had considered him a romantic prospect. But details of his superior socio-economic status—his father is a “KC,” the acronym for king’s counsel, and his mother an art collector—contribute to a portrait that becomes less and less sympathetic. By the time the trial concludes, he has been reduced to a callous son of privilege—the British equivalent of a rich, snotty frat boy, essentially.
The play, in other words, creates the illusion of nuance and balance, then shatters it. It might be argued that crimes as horrific as the one alleged in Prima Facie make such factors difficult, or even impossible, to establish. But I’d like to think that as long as men and women are both susceptible to human frailty, and deserving of justice, they must apply.
Prima Facie opened April 23, 2023, at the Golden Theatre and runs through July 2. Tickets and information: primafacieplay.com
