Prima Facie: Thankful for Good Men
No words for Jodie Comer’s performance — astounding, striking and brave. What a monologue, including rain and a wet stage. (Terrible diet!) Watch it, see it, clap at the end for applause is well deserved for performer, writer, the legal set of files, shelves and moveable desks and chairs. I watched it as a National Theatre Live in the cinema.
This one woman monologue is about Law, but also how the Law system does or doesn’t defend those who need its protection most and how much of what goes on in courts is a social/cultural ‘game’.
Made me think about how we assess victimhood; why we always expect victims to stay strong when trauma and PTSD is kicking in and the nature of sexual crimes causes memory distortion; how crime, especially intimate crime depersonalises and dehumanises (and the Law alienates where it should protect); how vital trained, expert services are — from the beginning (and access to them); how sexual crime is often carried out by those known to the victim and trauma reactions conflict with the types of evidence collecting needed for criminal prosecution. In this horrific case the victim had to carry on working with the perpetrator. And how victims deal with their perpetrators getting away with it when the Law, evidence and jury don’t convict.
Total respect for anyone pushing legal proceedings (in this play, it was a wait of 782 days!) and trying to carry on with their lives. I think we make rape the worst thing that can happen to a person and at the same time push the strong victim to the enth degree. Also got me thinking about representation — a crime against a woman by a man is assessed by mostly men — a roomful of majority men. The UK legal system needs to change! as so much evidence testing can be humiliating, degrading and lacking in dignity (especially with open courts).
Overall, a fascinating, compelling, horrifying drama of the legal system. Warning though — it will make you teary, emotional, furious — distressingly it triggered a lady near me with memories of going through something similar — they were in floods of tears. It is visceral reality. I suggest you find somewhere beautiful, pray, to be with others. But despite its subject matter there is some humour and a huge range of emotions covered — we meet a real woman, a clever woman who loves her job and knows the Law, the legal system, who loves life.
It has also made me question myself. Part of me starts to think how foolish to be severely drunk with a man; this play has made me check myself. So much of how the UK legal system treats rape and sexual violence is cultural as well as about the crime. Why should a woman (having had consenting pleasurable sex when drunk with a known partner in her own home after a date) have to worry that her partner might not be able to interpret consent all of a sudden or take advantage of a vomiting incident. Surely he should know, not just her? Surely he should be able to tell??? Yet we all (as women) play this bizarre cultural game and it’s time to stop.
As I left the cinema, I saw a man holding a woman carefully and lovingly and with such tender kindness as they walked out — I’m really thankful for good men at this time. The drama gravely highlighted society’s urgent need for more of you.
