[The Injustice of It All ]
Holding court docket for 100-minutes is a feat in itself for a full forged. Nonetheless doing in order a solo performer is downright laudable and completely deserving of the standing ovation that Acushla-Tara Kupe obtained on opening night time.
Author Suzie Miller is a former lawyer, and it’s heartening to learn that regardless of Prima Facie being initially put aside, it was revived with the appearance of the #MeToo motion. Miller’s intense and insightful script is an actor’s dream and Kupe devours each phrase and delivers them with nice aplomb. She grabs the viewers’s consideration from the primary second and doesn’t let go, whereas some well-timed comedic moments present a a lot wanted reprieve from the weighty material.
Prima Facie is a one-woman play that follows Tessa Ensler, a legal defence barrister, by means of the seemingly customary challenges of affection, life and profession. Hustling from underprivileged beginnings to achieve the high of her sport, Ensler is ruthless, revered and is aware of precisely the best way to use the regulation to defend males going through sexual assault costs – usually on the expense these ladies that dare to hunt justice.
It’s all energy and success till a life-shattering occasion shakes Ensler’s fervent perception within the regulation, inserting her within the very place of the individuals she’s constructed her profession tearing to items – within the identify of a good trial. She faces a authorized system that’s engineered to fail her and the numerous survivors of sexual assault she has beforehand cross-examined. Ensler has no selection however to confront the emotional, societal and authorized ramifications of being a sufferer herself, re-evaluating her beforehand strongly held views on the equity of the system that brings perpetrators to justice.
Director Paul Gittins’ inventive imaginative and prescient is demonstrated with absolute readability. Kupe’s seamless transitions and nuanced efficiency is testomony to Gittins’ good supportive path of this extraordinarily advanced work. As well as, an particularly efficient selection is the minimal use of lighting, sound, set & AV to focus our consideration on the actor and the story being informed. This “much less is extra” strategy subtly helps and highlights the motion on stage.
Eve De Castro-Robinson’s sound design is of specific word. The sparse use of sound results, and syncopated rhythms add rigidity and draw the viewers into the scenes enjoying out on stage. Using projected milestones to set every scene aids the play’s non-sequential construction. This gadget additionally cleverly edits the timeline of occasions to construct rigidity and clarify the authorized course of with out disrupting the narrative of the protagonist’s expertise.
Finally Prima Facie is certainly a one-woman masterpiece with the load to shift views and query what’s black and white within the eyes of justice. The courageous method that this play tackles material that’s usually both averted or swept beneath that carpet is very commendable. And Kupe’s potential to ship this scintillating writing, makes Prima Facie an important theatrical expertise that pulls no punches.
The viewers response was notable, extraordinary, and palpable in that the narrative clearly resonated audibly with many current.
After the present you permit with the sensation that it’s us, the viewers, which have been cross-examined within the witness field. We left feeling exhausted however educated and enriched. Prima Facie is uncooked, with harrowing moments the place “No means no” seems to be ‘open to interpretation’ or at instances simply merely dismissed, and asks whether or not the regulation because it stands can truly present justice in its present guise.
This present has beforehand been reviewed as “pressing and highly effective” however extra importantly it’s compelling and important for individuals to see. Do you have to see it? Sure. And on this case, Sure means Sure.
Prima Facie performs the Hearld Theatre, Aotea Centre twenty first June – ninth July 2023
