There's a famous quote making the rounds the past two years.
"Everything woke turns to SH!#."
And it does.
Prima Facie, an actual new show actually running ON Broadway (Gasp!) stars Killing Eve bad girl, Jodie Comer. She's it. One woman. 90 minutes. No intermission. Incredible.
Wish the same could be said for the base concept.
The play involves a supposed case of rape. The alleged victim? Ms. Comer as Tessa, a hard-charging and equally hard-drinking attorney in the British court system. Tessa begins an affair with Alex, a fellow solicitor in the same office.
Tessa did not get the memo about Kosher office politics. Don't take your meat where you also get your bread.
Tessa and Alex boink in the office (Yet another memo ignored) after a drunken flirtation at an afterwork party (sigh), and decide seeing each other outside the office would be their next great idea. Not only do they think it's a great idea . . . they go out on a date!
Oy vey.
After the date, fueled by a deadly combination of liquor, ovulation, testosterone, estrogen, and opportunity, the two nubile sorta youngsters perform the Posture-Pedic Polka back at Tessa's place (Good God. This is the dumbest smart woman on the planet) to such excess that she escapes to the bathroom and vomits repeatedly. Afterwards, Tessa and Alex return to her bedroom (No comment), and, surprise!, engage in sexual intercourse for the 300th round.
This time, however, Tessa decides halfway through that she's not up to another entry into the vaginal canal and protests. Shockingly, Alex, not really buying the coitus interruptus at this juncture, completes the assignation. It’s a scene which does not ring true as Ms. Comer’s character, and Alex, are still drunk, lustful, and naked. Another lethal combination.
The writer, Suzie Miller, attempts to connote some sort of rougher play on the part of Alex, but this is where the already weak case collapses. The two already connected on an athletic level several times prior, including a contortionist's dream of sex in a cramped law office. Tessa and her paramour should have taken a little more time, and perhaps not been thrown together as officemates to boot, and gotten to know each other before stampeding to connubial bliss. Ah, gee. My body. My choice? A double-edged sword ignored by Ms. Miller and director, Justin Martin.
Ms. Comer’s performance is remarkable. Hope she gets nominated for a Tony.
But until writers, directors, and producers cease to feed a narrative which no longer clearly defines serious human interactions such as abuse, racism, misogyny, classism, gender discrimination, harassment, and rape, we will NEVER understand AGAIN as a society exactly what those are. The definitions have been blurred beyond recognition.
Prima Facie should have taken some instruction from the Duke LaCrosse case, and the recent embarrassing episode of Matt Araiza, the former punter for the Buffalo Bills. In both cases, young men and their reputations were dragged through the media mud. As it turns out, in both instances, the prosecution overstepped, overcharged, overreacted, and, quite frankly, was wrong. Will any of those unfairly accused EVER get their lives back? Doubtful. But that’s okay. They served their purpose.
No one is denying the existence of rape, racism, abuse, etcetera. Let me write that again for the reading impaired. No one is denying the existence of rape, racism, abuse, etcetera. But unless we get the proverbial handle on a clearer meaning of the terms, especially as they apply in a legal sense, America will never get out from underneath the confusion of plays like Prima Facie.
Applause for Ms. Comer.
Cascading boos for Suzie Miller and Justin Martin.
Bring us a real instance of a crime, you dopes, and stop depending on the woke idiots of today to prop up your lazy attempts at such.