Prima Facie review: Jodie Comer makes a remarkable Broadway debut in Suzie Miller's one-woman show
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"Thoroughbreds," Jodie Comer utters, standing triumphant on a table at the start of Suzie Miller's 2019 one-woman play Prima Facie, opening April 23 at the Golden Theatre. As Tess Ensler, she's referring to the lawyers she competes against in court and the wealthy and privileged law students she competed against at Cambridge.
Tess herself is no Thoroughbred hailing from some august pedigree. She comes from a working class background, she worked hard and outperformed her Thoroughbred classmates. But she's a winner, nonetheless.
Standing triumphant on that table, Tess launches into the thrill of cross-examining a witness. It's a game to her, a game she is exceptionally good at, and she struts away with another win under her barrister's robe. Tess has dedicated her life to the law, and with a working knowledge of its ins and outs, she has complete faith in the legal system.
Bronwen Sharp
She makes a name for her self defending men accused of sexual assault. 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. And she does it very well.
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. "The law is there to protect everyone. Protect those who accuse, protect those who are accused," she says. "If a few guilty people get off then it's because the job was not done well enough by the prosecutor and the police."
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.
And then she's sexually assaulted.
All her legal knowledge and expertise doesn't keep Tess from getting caught up in the system. 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.
Bronwen Sharp
Prima facie is a legal term meaning "sufficient to establish a fact or raise a presumption unless disproved or rebutted," often used when referring to evidence. Colloquially, it translates to "on the face of it."
The playbill for Prima Facie comes with a fold-out featuring, on one side, a list of facts about sexual assault in America and information about the organizations the School Consent Project and Everyone's Invited. On the other side is the play's poster, Comer's face, Janus-like, one red and placid, the other blue and screaming, with the words "On the face of it something has to change."
Prima Facie is thus both an entertainment and an education. And it excels at both.
Bronwen Sharp
Jodie Comer is just plain f---ing remarkable. For an hour and 40 minutes, she's absolutely transfixing. At first haughty and self-possessed as the young lawyer with a brilliant future, and then defeated but defiant as a victim determined to retain her faith in the system to which she had dedicated her life.
Comer had previously proven her range in her Emmy-winning turn in Killing Eve, exhibiting a deftness for drama and comedy with the physicality necessary for the internationally infamous assassin Villanelle. Here, the depth of that range is on full display.
Through her movements, her changes in posture and in voice, she builds a world only to tear it down before your eyes, as Tess' own world is shattered after her rape. Comer is, essentially, delivering a monologue for nearly two hours, but it's a testament to her performance that Prima Facie never comes off that way.
Bronwen Sharp
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. And of course there's Miller's script, stubbornly sober then searingly passionate. The result is a night of theater that not only speaks to the culture but shifts it as well.
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. 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.
Suzie Miller, herself a former lawyer, takes this to task in the powerful final third of Prima Facie. 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. Comer is astounding in this section.
One of the wonders of live theater is the chance to see something approaching miraculous up close and personal. I kept wondering to myself how Comer can do this night after night for ten weeks. The emotional and physical toll of a performance like this is, and the truths it brings to light, is akin to a public service.
Bronwen Sharp Jodie Comer makes Broadway debut in 'Prima Facie'
As a one-woman show, the play feels especially intimate. It has to be. The subject matter requires it. At one point, the lights turn on the audience as Tess confronts the failings of the legal system, how victims are further victimized on trial and forced to recount their assault, over and over again, flawlessly, doubtlessly, in order to win some semblance of justice.
"Something has to change," she pleads.
Prima Facie is a part, no matter how small, of that change. It makes a crystal clear argument for a change not only in the way victims of sexual assault are treated by the legal system, but also the need for education and open discourse about consent. As true change has to be foundational. Prima Facie exposes the cracks in the foundation and demands the audience not to look away. With Comer at the center, it's impossible to. A+
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