Theatre Review: Prima Facie

The Play: Prima Facie by Suzie Miller

The Theatre: The Comedy Theatre, Exhibition Street

Runtime: 90 minutes

Until 31 May

Stars: 5

You have to love AI. I asked it to find me the review I did for Prima Facie a couple of years ago - and it finds it for you. February 2023 at the Fairfax Studio. Brilliant. 

Everything I said about this play stands. You can read my original review here. 

Three years on, everything still stands. 

In this limited run at the Comedy Theatre, Sheridan Harbridge takes on the role of Tessa Ensler once again - in a larger auditorium. Gone is the intimacy of the 400-seater amphitheatre. Tonight, the Comedy Theatre, which seats around 1000, was all but full. 

Harbridge once again wove her magic over this incredibly important play. 

It's been three years since I saw this. Tonight's performance was just as fresh as the last time - if anything, tonight's performance was more nuanced than what I remember from last year - her movements subtler, more refined. Some of her diatribes were softer, but this made the message clearer. 

I found tears welling at the very end. The play has that effect. 

There was also a well-deserved standing ovation from most of the audience. 

This time, I think the play hit home even more. One in three women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime. One in a hundred will take the complaint to the police. Sexual assault has very low conviction rates. Nothing has changed. Rape is prosecuted in courts where the victims are all but put on trial. 

And this in a week where three teenage boys repeated raped two teenage girls, filming them all the while. They were guilty. They had irrefutable evidence. The boys were sentenced to non-custodial sentences, which are now being reviewed. The judge said in his findings, that he didn't want to further criminalise the boys, seeing they were minors.  

There has been an unprecedented outcry. And rightly fucking so. 

Still, at the end of the 90 minutes of this play, once again, I was on my feet applauding this incredible play and the tour de force that is Sheridan Harbridge. 

The play has also been turned into a book. If you miss this, the book is just as good. 

I'm honoured to have seen this again. It's too important to no witness again. 

Today's song: