Sarah on theater

[Notes, don’t think I’ll finish this]

It’s hard to talk about this without contextualizing it as a spiritual sequel to “Prima Facie.” Like the earlier play, “Inter Alia” is a monologue-heavy character study—Jessica, the narrator-lead, delivers about 90% of the lines—about a barrister with deep expertise in sexual assault cases whose worldview is shaken when she’s personally affected by one. This is a wheelhouse piece for playwright Suzie Miller in both form and content, to some disadvantage of the later show: Miller risks “retread” allegations by the fussier members of the audience.

Jessica’s docket is filled with rape cases. She’s known for her empathy for the plaintiffs; a female judge just makes women feel more comfortable speaking to their experiences, or so we’re told. This kind of work, served with a side of emotional labor, classically falls to women, and precocious Jessica—youthful for a judge, in her mid-40s—takes it on with vigor. At the same time, she’s managing the fragile ego of her less-successful husband, [raising her son practically by herself], [struggling for her own individuality - red lipstick and rock music.] [Rosamund Pike is really good.] [Son is credibly accused of rape.]

[Is Miller developing a thesis or diluting one?] Taken together you can see the outline of a broader critique of the legal system - that it is fundamentally unequipped to deal with this type of violence. As Michael notes, rape is the rare example of a crime this definitionally tied to intent, and [hard to prove to the standards of the court under most circumstances.] [Truth and morality - “not guilty” is not the same as innocent, it just means that the jury didn’t see enough to convict you.] The adversarial legal system demands that everyone gets an opportunity to defend themselves and inserts this layer of gamesmanship. [The culprit is ignorance and insufficient systems]

Critically, both protagonists are women who work in that system. Of everyone on the planet who hasn’t been directly affected by sexual assault, [they ought to have a superior understanding of it - whose perspectives nevertheless change - the blind spot isn’t so cut and dry as “men aren’t being empathetic enough, and shame on them” - not that it lets them off the hook, exactly - the point is that the blind spot is human, that women can miss this or perpetrate it too, and that using this as raw ammunition for a larger gender war doesn’t actually help anyone - the system was designed by people who simply didn’t have the empathy and nobody is particularly well served by how it is - victims have a hard time getting justice, perpetrators can sometimes legitimately make well intentioned mistakes, families get fucked up, and even a very empathetic ball-and-strike-caller can’t fix all this.] When the definition of the crime depends on the unknowable contents of the perpetrator’s heart, the deck is stacked.

Whether exactly this is enough to differentiate “Inter Alia” as a standalone dramatic work may be a matter of your own critical values. [A lot of these ideas were developed in “Prima Facie” first.] How much does it matter if a play has something novel to say? What if it’s an important thing to say? I really enjoyed it but I can’t help but feel that it’s the second in a trio of one acts, excised from the others.