There have been few plays that have captivated the nation in recent years like Suzie Miller’s Prima Facie, which has now played multiple different theatres around Australia to great success and has been translated into multiple different languages. 

Now, the play has returned to Griffin Theatre Company where it originated for a national tour, featuring original actor Sheridan Harbridge in the lead role. Unsurprisingly, the play has sold incredibly well, with its Sydney season having very few seats left for its limited run at the Roslyn Packer Theatre. 

The set is bare with only a chair on stage as the audience walks into the theatre, which instantly adds a sense of realism to the production. Legal dramas, both on television and on the stage, have a reputation, and indeed, a penchant, for being wildly unrealistic and sensationalised. Yet Miller, as a former corporate lawyer herself, does not fall into this trap with extremely vivid and considered writing throughout the play, which follows a junior criminal defence barrister through her dealings with the system as a sexual assault victim. 

The play is a confronting watch, as the audience watches someone who has built themselves and their strength upon the judicial system crumble as the judicial system fails to protect them after they are assaulted by a fellow barrister in their chambers. The play is a harrowing insight into both the judicial process and the extra-judicial impacts of reporting, with the protagonist forced to relive their trauma repeatedly while her perpetrator watches silently. With recent real-life legal cases bringing the issue of how sexual assault victims are treated in both criminal and civil trials to the forefront of the Australian public consciousness, the play feels poignant, even if its enduring relevance is quite unsettling. 

The play is centred around a single performer in Harbridge who performs every role in the production and is on stage for the entirety of the play’s 90 minute duration. It is a Herculean acting performance, with Harbridge having to manage pace, tone, timbre and the vicissitudes of the emotional arc of the play (as well as all of the lines of course). Harbridge does an exceptional job, with no noticeable slip-ups throughout the play’s runtime and her interpretation is considered and energetic but it does feel at times that she brings such a great deal of energy from the start of the performance that it leaves little room for the character to go when the play reaches its emotional climax (although Renee Mulder’s isolating set, Paul Charlier’s music and Trent Suidgeest’s lighting definitely assist significantly in this regard). Harbridge takes a more humorous interpretation of Tessa than other actors that I’ve seen (Sof Forrest comes to mind) and while this is certainly entertaining, it does mean that some of the meaning feels a little lost at times. This is not to slight Harbridge’s performance at all, as her acting remains in the very top echelon of Australian performers but is rather a question of interpretation and degree. 

In some ways, it is interesting to see just how critical Miller is of the judicial system, given both her background as a lawyer and given that her husband currently sits on the bench of the High Court of Australia. However, this is also very much the point of Miller’s play, as she highlights how a solely legal viewpoint of trauma can ignore the management of lived experience, which can be just as powerful to victim-survivors as legal vindication. In this way, the work is particularly powerful as it exposes and interrogates an often deeply-held view in the legal profession that the law provides absolutes by holding it against a more nuanced reality that resonates with both lawyers and non-lawyers alike. With that said, as time continues to pass from the play’s original staging, it does feel as though the lack of an intersectional awareness in the play is somewhat limiting with no real discussion of the lived experience of gender-diverse, queer and culturally diverse individuals within the legal profession who face additional challenges, especially when dealing with the judicial system. Of course, there is only so much ground that can be traversed when exploring one person’s experience but it is perhaps another flaw in the process that could be explored further. 

Overall, this is a very strong performance of a remarkable play that has done a great deal for shaping the legal profession in this country and beyond. Miller’s writing is vivid and evocative and Harbridge’s performance is strong, bringing a great deal of technical skill to a challenging role. This is definitely a must-see for lawyers but addresses issues that touch all of society and thus, will resonate deeply with many. A powerful Australian work from one of our nation’s foremost playwrights and a fantastic performance from one of our foremost actors. 

Rating: ★★★★

Prima Facie plays at the Roslyn Packer Theatre until 21 June. For more information, click here.

All photo credits: Brett Boardman