Prima Facie Made Me Confront My Own History and Biases Toward Sexual Assault

*Massive trigger warning for discussions of sexual assault, both personal and in the legal system. I’ll also only be discussing women as victims in this context, because it’s what the play addresses. I’m well aware that plenty of men and children are also victims.*

WHAT’S UP WITH THE PLAY?

National Theater Live’s Official Summary of Prima Facie:

“Tessa is a young, brilliant barrister. She has worked her way up from working class origins to be at the top of her game; defending; cross examining and winning. An unexpected event forces her to confront the lines where the patriarchal power of the law, burden of proof and morals diverge.”

The latest run of Suzie Miller’s award-winning play was performed solely by Jodie Comer (Tessa) and directed by Justin Martin.

It ran for nine weeks at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London’s West End starting in April 2022. One of those performances was filmed for distribution in theaters in multiple countries for one day only: July 21, 2022.

It was that night, in a random AMC movie theater in Chattanooga, Tennessee, that I had the privilege of seeing the recording of this raw and devastating performance, which is understandably on its way to Broadway in Spring 2023.

CAVEATS TO THE STORY AND MY PERSPECTIVE

I discussed the premise of this play with one of my dearest friends before seeing it. She and her husband happen to be attorneys, ones who fervently support “innocent until proven guilty” as the bedrock of the justice system. The play actually takes that route too, with Tessa being adamant that even “guilty” people deserve a legal defense, one within the confines of established law. While defense attorneys, especially those of violent crimes, get a bad wrap, the truth is they’re doing their jobs.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys both have a role to play and it is the jury who decides, based on the evidence presented. It’s not a defense attorney’s place to judge. There are other positions who serve that role in court.

That’s not to say there aren’t defense attorneys who are horrible people. It’s to acknowledge there are horrible people in every profession and the job title doesn’t denote a lack of humanity. Plenty of defense attorneys adamantly believe in the system and are simply playing their parts to ensure evidence is properly presented on behalf of their clients.

The justice system needs defense attorneys as much as any other member that makes it function.

My attorney friend’s biggest qualms about the story have to do with the specific events. She’s very much not in support of the crux of the story being “defense attorney who works with those accused of sexual assault gets raped herself.” It can feel like punishment for Tessa’s profession and something those with a bias against defense attorneys can easily read as comeuppance for her ever winning a case that keeps even one guilty man out of jail.

I’d not considered this at first because I was very “yay, women” about this work. However, she’s very much made me appreciate and even agree with her perspective.

With that in mind, the play still has something very personal to say and I can understand why the storyline is what it is — even if it can feel uncomfortable as the central narrative. In a fictional setting lasting only 100 minutes, it makes sense that someone embedded in the justice system can speak directly to all sides, having served as both defense counsel and later a victim navigating a trial as the sole witness.

Anyway here’s the assumption I’m making going forward: that the narrative doesn’t intend for what happens to Tessa to be punishment and that it’s only meant to represent a heinous crime committed against far too many women. A crime that’s indiscriminate of status, race, or wealth and can happen to any of us.

*Here’s where it gets personal for me.*

WHAT HAPPENED TO ME

I often explain to people that I believe there’s a stark contrast between forgetting something and not being able to remember it. By that, I mean I have instances in my life — 3 to be exact — where I have detailed memories of specific events up to a certain point, and then it all goes blank. I didn’t forget. My mind has apparently made it so I can’t remember.

Two have to do with potential sexual assault. I want to talk about one of them. (Okay, I don’t want to talk about it, but I feel as though I need to in the context.)

Back in 2000, I went to a friend’s graduation party the summer after my junior year. It was at a hotel party filled with a bunch of 16-19ish year olds. Her parents did have a friend of the family, well over 30, there to “supervise.” Sure, whatever. Pretty sure she stayed in the hotel bar most of the time. 

The alcohol was flowing, of course. I don’t recall where it came from because the night gets real hazy, real fast. This is what I do know: I had one drink. ONE. I find that to be pertinent because someone inevitably wants to take the “well you were drunk” route in instances like these.

No, I was not drunk. I was drugged.

Being drunk wouldn’t have made the experience any less valid, but that simply wasn’t the case here.

So yeah, one drink. One drink and I woke up a couple hours later next to a friend’s younger sister, who also remembered having one drink. We were just laying on this bed acting like weirdos, looking out the blinds at cars in the parking lot and having nonsense conversations. Ok, odd event, but whatever. For some reason, I didn’t think much of it.

I also remember this stupid detail later of waiting for an elevator and tossing out a chicken wing in a potted plant. So random. Why was I even waiting for the elevator? No idea.

I know there was a guy with me, but I couldn’t tell you what he looked like if my life depended on it.

The next thing I knew, I came to several hours later: in a bathtub, in someone else’s clothes, with the adult jamming her fingers down my throat to get me to throw up, and a couple friends standing watch.

Between the chicken wing and the bathtub? Nothing.

Once I got a bit of Sprite in me and Captain Supervisor was apparently satisfied by my overall consciousness, well the night is still hazy from there, isn’t it? The mere fact I was awake didn’t mean I had the slightest clue what just happened.

While still sitting in that tub, clothed in someone’s boxers and t-shirt in a few inches of water, I realized a male friend had stayed behind with me. I tried to discern from him what in the world had gone on in the past few hours.

His version of the story went something like this: some guy was trying to leave with me and he intervened, basically “saving” me from this dude. Of course, no one knew who he was. Super helpful.

What he so casually mentioned to me next, a bit out of the blue, was that I was a great kisser. I was so confused. Nothing had ever happened between us. As it turns out, for reasons I’ll never understand, once he supposedly saved me from that random guy, he proceeded to start something with me himself?!

I guess I laughed it off. What else was there to do at the time? I was still confused out of my mind and in that terribly vulnerable position.

Did this guy just tell me he saved me from what someone else was going to do, only to then… take advantage of me himself?

I think I told a couple friends later, friends who were at the party. I don’t remember. If I did, certainly no one took it seriously. Heck, I didn’t either.

I was sick for three days after that, often throwing up my guts and feeling like I’d been hit by a semi-truck. I had to pretend to function because, of course, I was only 17 years old and my parents didn’t know where I’d really been that night.

I never followed up with anyone else there to try and piece the night together, and I certainly didn’t report it. What would I report? I had no details, no coherent memories, and you know, “maybe nothing happened.” Because isn’t that always what we try to talk ourselves into when something happens that’s too big to process? Must not be real. Shrug. Move on.

But when I think about everything that must’ve happened just to get me from the hotel elevator to a tub in someone else’s clothes, those scenarios each require a lot of events. And honestly, I mostly never wanted to think about it.

Ultimately, it just became a strange anecdote I told in college as if it was normal. Maybe the biggest problem is that it was, that it is. These kinds of situations occur so frequently and many have had it so much worse than me.

I’m not holding my trauma up against anyone else’s. This is merely the direct incident that connected me to Prima Facie’s themes and subject matter on a personal level.

I will never know what happened that night. Part of me feels lucky for that. Part of me feels not great when thinking that man went on to pull the same kind of shit again, likely succeeding at some point. Part of me feels guilty for the girls or women I was not able to help. Part of me… a lot of things.

Which brings me to the intersection of fiction and non-fiction.

HOW I RELATED TO PRIMA FACIE’S NARRATIVE

In most instances, though the narrative toys with a non-linear narrative in certain places, Tessa’s overall story is happening in real time. We hear in her own words what’s happening as it unfolds.

And the “unexpected event” the summary promises she’s forced to confront, is being raped by a colleague she really likes, who she has a recent, yet pre-existing history with.

I won’t detail everything, but essentially they’d first had sex in his office days before, which of course would be counted against her, and on the night in question, they’d gone out, gotten shitfaced drunk and had sex earlier. The atrocious attack happened in the middle of the night after those consensual events.

Everything she explained in great detail made me cringe, because I knew every sentence was a strike against her narrative. Every bit of confusion she expressed, every doubt in herself, made even me momentarily question her too! I think that’s how we, as women, protect ourselves. She said the same thing to herself as I said to myself, as I know many other women have said to themselves. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe I’m overreacting. Maybe it didn’t happen.

Every miniscule matter she discussed made it less and less likely people would believe her.

Overwhelmingly and unsurprisingly, they didn’t. He had too good a reputation. Even Tessa continued to try and convince herself it wasn’t true because of this. That maybe she was wrong about the attack because he, a man she’d known and worked with for years, wouldn’t really do that, would he? 

But. He. Did.

He did.

The first thing she does after, traumatized and not thinking about everything she knows, is take a shower. We all watch TV. We know that’s the last thing you want to do after an attack. It will wash away physical evidence, which is the best and many times only chance you have to prove your case.

But what about her shame? What about how she felt violated and disgusting and dirty? She says she’s already scrubbed herself red before she realizes what she’s doing. And then, it’s her fault for having taken a shower when she shouldn’t have.

Well maybe, I don’t know, he shouldn’t have raped her. That way she can take showers as normal, without feeling like she just contributed to ruining her own life — but I digress.

For everyone who doesn’t believe her, everyone that asks “are you sure?”, for each time she’s revictimized over and over by having to be physically examined or retell the story, the cracks in the system regarding the way sexual assault is handled come into view.

When she finally takes the stand, the prosecution grills her about every detail and her answers make her seem confused, unreliable, and sometimes even dumb.

Unlike many people are apt to believe, a traumatic event does not sharpen one's senses and memories. It’s exactly the opposite in most cases. There is confusion, questioning, and incoherent timelines.

As Tessa herself describes, the overall instance is fully experienced, but it’s the peripherals that are vague and often inaccessible.

HOW I REACTED TO PRIMA FACIE

I went in assuming I would cry. First of all, it’s very easy for me to cry. I have an extremely tender heart and tons of feelings. Second, I’d heard from many others how many tears flooded the theatre during live performances.

I thought I was prepared.

I balked when Tessa was accused by the defense of fabricating the story because she and the defendant were the only two people up for a job at new chambers. So, obviously this was for her benefit and his detriment. The kicker: even if the shortlist thing was true, which is debatable, she didn’t know about it. She was wholly unaware either of them were being considered at the time. She was told about the job offhandedly, offered it without interviewing, and took it specifically to get away from her attacker. Because, you know, they still worked together.

I was touched when Adam, a former male colleague who Tessa cut off like most everyone else in her former chambers, not only told her he believed her but said he was aware of a similar complaint previously made about her attacker. It was hearsay and couldn’t be admitted as evidence, but he believed her and showed up in court to support her, even though they had barely talked since the attack over two years ago.

I was relieved at the way Tessa’s mom responded to her, even knowing Tessa didn’t want to have to reveal so much of her sexual history in front of her mother.

I was frustrated that it was evident her mother had once experienced the same type of event in the past and that they would never discuss it.

I was thankful for the young female officer, a stranger, that stayed with Tessa’s mother throughout the trial and comforted Tessa at every chance.

I shook my head fervently in disbelief well before the inevitable conclusion of the narrative.

But what did I not do?

I did not cry, even as Tessa was willing herself not to. I did not cry.

In fact, I had very few feelings during the show. I was logically disgusted and emphatically wanted to protect Tessa with my life, but I couldn’t connect to the feelings of disgust and empathy. 

I dissociated. Disconnected from my own sense of self as I looked on in complete shock.

I couldn’t fight for her. I could only watch on in horror, absolutely sure of what was coming.

After 782 days of waiting, 3 days of trial, and one time on the witness stand, Tessa’s perpetrator walks away scot free. And it is this woman, whose life has been distinctly split between before the attack and after, that has to watch him, his family, and his old college mates cheer about it.

He’ll never serve time. He’ll never have to apologize or even admit what he did. But that doesn’t change the truth that he did do it. Unfortunately, she is the one who continues to pay the price.

She will carry this with her forever. I will cry later.

REAL WORLD CONSEQUENCES

Worldwide statistics estimate as many as 1 in 3 women are the victims of sexual assault (or attempted sexual assault) at some point in their lives.

1 in 3.

As Tessa says toward the end of her narrative, “Look to your left. Look to your right. It’s one of us.”

Now, as I walk through a crowded place and look around, I can’t imagine that kind of impact. Studies show it may be closer to 1 in 5 women in the United States, because locations obviously differ, but that’s not a significant improvement by any means. Especially when you factor in that more than 30% of those women were 11-17 years old when the first incident occurred.

It was only an attempt in my case, but yep, 17 years old. Kids. Children. Young humans full of confusion and unwarranted shame that don’t know where to go or who to turn to after. And because we don’t openly talk about matters of this nature, because there is so much victim blaming and secrecy, sexual assaults go largely unreported — much less prosecuted.

And for the ones that are reported? Victims are examined and questioned over and over, being forced to retell their story, reveal their sexual history, and relive the events of a trauma that’s likely changed the entire trajectory of their lives going forward.

If the case makes it to trial at all, it can take years. It was a little over two in Tessa’s case. Two years of it hanging over her head before she could even begin to put it behind her. And then there was the actual outcome, another blow to her very personhood. Another violation in itself. “They didn’t believe me.”

Honestly, how can we even measure the impact? It’s repulsive.

And as much as we love to delude ourselves into a sense of safety from the big bads of the world, the idea of the random criminal on the street is simply not the norm. It’s overwhelmingly men — ones already known to each victim — who commit these acts. 

Then, it is these same men who the victims will try to protect. Or worse, it is these same men who will act as if they’re the victims themselves, having to be dragged through something that may affect their reputation and livelihood.

It’s not right, it’s not fair, and the justice system can’t be left like this if its intent is to actually provide justice in these types of cases.

That’s what Suzie Miller’s words and Jodie Comer’s performance ultimately said in Prima Facie — something has to change.

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Prima Facie is set to add more showings to theaters in the near future and is scheduled to premiere on Broadway in Spring 2023.