"It's the game. The game of law."
"There is no real truth, only legal truth."
— Tessa
Prima Facie is a one-woman play written by Australian-British playwright Suzie Miller. The play debuted in 2019 in Sydney, Australia starring Sheridan Harbridge. A West End production starring Jodie Comer (in her stage debut) and with a soundtrack by Self Esteem ran in 2022 before a transfer to Broadway in 2023. A proshot was released by National Theatre Streaming in 2022.
The play is about Tessa, a brilliant barrister who is forced to reexamine her career and convictions after a dark event.
A film adaptation is in the works with Cynthia Erivo attached to produce and star. Suzie Miller also adapted the play into a novel that was released on January 27, 2024 with an audiobook narrated by Jodie Comer.
Tropes:
- Animal Motifs: In the opening lines Tessa compares herself to a thoroughbred horse — a well-trained powerhouse with killer instincts — in her legal career.
- Bittersweet Ending: In the end Tessa's rapist Julian is declared not guilty of assaulting her, and she loses her faith in the legal system. However, she also feels as if a weight has been lifted from her shoulders in even taking the case to court. She has also been able to find her voice again and resolves to keep fighting.
- Break the Haughty: Tessa begins as a criminal lawyer at the top of her game, confident about her record of successes and rather amoral about how she gets several men accused of sexual assault off. But after she is raped herself, she realizes how difficult and soul-crushing it is to be on the other end and try to obtain justice.
- Female Misogynist: It's considered ironic that Tessa is a female lawyer who has a tendency to defend men accused of sexual assault. Her colleague asks if she's hired not for her competence, but because she's a woman and it looks better. It's clear that Tessa is very blithe about the women she may be hurting as both a coping mechanism and so her male colleagues will take her seriously.
- Finger Gun: Tessa points her fingers akin to guns as she destroys a witness with four brutal questions, she metaphorically "killing" the prosecution's case.
- Gray Rain of Depression: Tessa sits through a curtain of rain as she tries to cope with just being raped.
- I Am Very British: Invoked. Tessa has a Liverpudlian accent, marking her as being of working-class origins, but puts on an Emily Blunt-esque posher RP when dealing with her fancy clients.
- Ironic Echo: Early on Tessa proudly recounts "Look to your left, look to your right" in the context of how one in three students drop out of law school, and she wasn't one of them. It's repeated near the end in the context of how one in three women are sexually assaulted in their life, and Tessa is one of them.
- Insanity Defense: One of Tessa's clients is a veteran with PTSD. She says she'll double down on that to get him off for assault.
- Large Ham: Jodie Comer chews as much scenery as she does moving them around.
- Marital Rape License: Discussed. In her impassioned filibuster near the end Tessa brings up how not too long ago it was perfectly legal for men to rape their wives, and how the law changed to accommodate them. And how it must change again to better protect victims.
- Office Romance: Tessa has a flirtatious relationship with Julian, another barrister in her chambers. And then he takes advantage of her while she's nauseous and intoxicated, causing the story's darker shift.
- The One Who Made It Out: Tessa is from a working-class background. She gets mockery from her family for becoming a 'fancy lawyer' and feels out of place among her classmates and colleagues with posh backgrounds.
- Preppy Name: While recounting her first day of law school, Tessa mocks a preppy classmate named Benedict:Tessa: Of course his name's Benedict!
- Product Placement: There really wasn't any reason for Tessa to mention her brother playing video games on his PlayStation, other than for this.
- Right Behind Me: Tessa telling her mother that her brother is a loser is interrupted by said brother behind her, angry at what he's overheard.
- Shower of Angst: After her colleague rapes her Tessa takes a searing hot shower, trying to rationalize if and how she can cope with the situation from both legal and personal perspectives. She beats herself up for it afterward because it would have washed off any physical evidence of the rape.
- Time Skip: The second half of the story takes place 782 days after Tessa's rape, represented by numbers projected on the wall ticking progressively upwards. It makes a point about how long victims must wait for their cases to be heard in court.
