By Nadia Free­man

Pri­ma Facie shares an authen­tic sto­ry of a wom­an’s expe­ri­ence of assault and nav­i­gat­ing the judi­cial sys­tem to seek jus­tice. The near­ly sell-out sea­son demon­strates that despite the raw and chal­leng­ing sub­ject, there is a strong call­ing for sto­ries like this.  

Rape is a word peo­ple don’t want to say, and for this rea­son a sub­ject not tack­led enough in pub­lic dis­cus­sion or art. When sex­u­al assault is por­trayed in tele­vi­sion, movies etc. the vic­tim all too often aligns to the pro­file of a per­fect damsel in dis­tress.  And fre­quent­ly the assault is por­trayed as being com­mit­ted by a stranger. 

The real­i­ty is eight out of ten rapes are com­mit­ted by some­one the per­son knows, and a third by their cur­rent or for­mer spouse. The trau­ma and some­times ongo­ing abuse impacts on their men­tal health, rela­tion­ships, and employ­ment. The sweet, inno­cent, infal­li­ble vic­tim trope is a dan­ger­ous rhetoric that caus­es sur­vivors who don’t fit the pro­file to be scru­ti­nised.

The writ­ing for the play is excep­tion­al. The sto­ry has a fun start as Tes­sa describes the thrill of court­room com­bat. She is con­fi­dent, per­haps arro­gant. She has a dog­mat­ic belief in the fair­ness of the law.  We the audi­ence are lured into a sense of com­radery as she brush­es off sen­ti­ments of unfair­ness and suc­cess­ful­ly secures ‘not guilty’ out­comes for her clients.

Through the unwa­ver­ing act­ing of Mel Dodge, we are right there with Tes­sa the whole time.  I don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly like Tes­sa, but I like spend­ing time with her. She is brave and intel­li­gent, she works very hard and puts time into the peo­ple around her. 

The pace of the sto­ry­telling holds strong thanks to the Direct­ing of Lyn­dee-Jane Ruther­ford at no point does it lose my atten­tion.  And the set design appears very sim­ple at first but reveals itself to be extreme­ly impact­ful.

At times I loved the sound design, the music build­ing up ten­sion and sus­pense or craft­ing a sense of space and time. But there were oth­er moments where a noise or sound-effect dis­tract­ed me from focus­ing on the dia­logue.  And while most of the script held strong, the con­flict between Tessa’s pro­fes­sion­al life and fam­i­ly life in par­tic­u­lar her broth­ers, didn’t add much to the sto­ry or char­ac­ter.

The end­ing sits close to the real­i­ty of the sys­tem that all assault vic­tims face. This show is a clear cry out to change the sys­tem from the needs of those accused, to that of sup­port­ing vic­tims. The sto­ry speaks for itself and for this rea­son I don’t think it need­ed the final clos­ing mono­logue.

Over­all Pri­ma Facie presents a top-class pro­duc­tion and the result of a team that works like a well-oiled machine.  A cred­it to Kavanah Pro­duc­tions & BRAVE The­atre for pre­sent­ing this impor­tant work and bring­ing the show to New Zealand audi­ences.

With only 7% of rape in NZ report­ed to the Police, Pri­ma Facie is an impor­tant sto­ry that is already mak­ing an impact. The show is now a manda­to­ry view­ing for high court judges in North­ern Ire­land before they sit on the bench.  In New Zealand, lawyers get two Con­tin­u­ing Pro­fes­sion­al Devel­op­ment points if they see this pro­duc­tion. Art can and does make an impact.

I would like to see more pre­sen­ta­tions like it  and more diver­si­ty in the sto­ries told. As one in four women has expe­ri­enced sex­u­al assault, it affects women of all cul­tures and eco­nom­ic back­grounds and sto­ries of mar­gin­alised groups also need to be heard.