Taken at face value, Prima Facie is a damning indictment of an inadequate justice system. But beneath the surface it’s just fashionable nihilism and emotional blackmail, undergirded by one of the best performances of the season.
Prima Facie
Opening Night: April 23, 2023
Theater: Golden Theatre
Website: primafacieplay.com
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April 23, 2023
Its star, Jodie Comer, late of “Killing Eve,” gives a performance of tremendous skill and improbable stamina, especially considering it is her first stage appearance. The production, directed by Justin Martin, is chic and accessible, with design flourishes, by now de rigueur, to underline the idea that it is a Big Event. And the reform of sexual assault jurisprudence that the play advocates could hardly be more convincingly argued or worthy of our attention.
But the underlining and the advocacy do something odd to the drama: They make it disappear.
READ THE REVIEWApril 23, 2023
“Prima Facie” is the kind of theater every artist should have an opportunity to make and every audience an opportunity to experience.
READ THE REVIEWApril 23, 2023
Killing Eve star Jodie Comer claims Broadway as her own in her tour de force performance of Prima Facie, a scalding indictment of the law and its limits opening tonight at the Golden Theatre.
READ THE REVIEWApril 23, 2023
Her virtuosity is not just a game—it’s emotional. Miller builds a respectable case, but Comer argues it brilliantly.
READ THE REVIEWApril 23, 2023
In addition to delivering a most logorrheic performance, Comer does it while pushing around two large tables and climbing up and down them to reconfigure Miriam Buether’s conference room set. Comer tackles the obstacle-course assignment with real gusto, although, again, you may find yourself stealing a breath for her.
READ THE REVIEWApril 23, 2023
Jodie Comer is just plain f—ing remarkable. For an hour and 40 minutes, she’s absolutely transfixing. At first haughty and self-possessed as the young lawyer with a brilliant future, and then defeated but defiant as a victim determined to retain her faith in the system to which she had dedicated her life.
April 23, 2023
But Comer goes far beyond our basic expectations and into the upper echelons of greatness. The 30-year-old actress is remarkably alive with both the nuclear energy of newness and the sturdy force of someone who’s been at it for decades.
READ THE REVIEWApril 23, 2023
Jodie Comer, famous for her work on the British TV series “Killing Eve,” offers up a stunning performance in “Prima Facie,” a taut and gripping legal thriller by Suzie Miller that offers compelling evidence on how to forge a solo show that can blow an audience away on Broadway.
READ THE REVIEWApril 23, 2023
Running 100 unbroken minutes, the production is Exhibit A of how a focused and fierce performance can elevate a work. Comer’s breathless star turn in her Broadway debut does that. Comer, who speaks for several minor characters, has won various awards for her portrait, including an Olivier. She is riveting, even in a late section where Tessa spouts statistics and the play teeters into movie-of-the-week territory.
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April 23, 2023
Prima Facie is a masterclass in sophistication, thoughtfulness, and brevity; the platonic ideal of a night at the theatre. Here’s to Comer and Miller returning to Broadway sooner rather than later, hopefully (for them) in a softer play, in a softer world.
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April 23, 2023
Comer’s performance moves at the relentless pace of someone trying to outspeed her own pain, and she’s up there keeping pace with a character whose mind moves at Mach 10. It’s an incredible breakneck feat, in which Comer achieves escape velocity from the script of Suzie Miller’s unsteady play and exerts a thrilling and devastating gravitational force of her own.
READ THE REVIEWApril 23, 2023
As a confident, even arrogant lawyer whose life is upended by a sexual assault, landing her in the disturbing position of sitting in a witness box, Jodie Comer gives one of the most thrilling performances of the Broadway season in “Prima Facie,” a gripping solo play by Suzie Miller.
April 23, 2023
She is a complex me, who Comer—in an astonishingly acted monolog—makes the center of a striking piece of theater directed by Justin Martin. In London earlier this month, Comer won the Olivier Award for Best Actress for her performance, while the play won Best New Play—and both must surely be Tony Award favorites here.
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