It's been a big weekend for me regarding Suzie Miller plays. It feels a little like cramming for a test at the last minute, but it has its advantages. The details remain fresher in your memory and the writer's techniques, story telling devices and frames are easier to remember, to contrast and to compare.
The quick take... "Inter Alia" is a very good play. It's cleverly written and follows some of the same ground both in terms of style and message as "Prima Facie" while still being its own individual piece of theatre. I didn't like it as much as "Prima Facie", and so what you may ask. Each show is unique and independent of others, it's not a competition, comparisons are odious etc etc. It's just that playwright Suzie Miller has hinted that these two plays form the first two parts of a loose trilogy so making connections isn't that strange.
"I've looked at it from the complainant's side (Prima Facie), now from the family's side (Inter Alia)... the next one will be another portal again," Miller told the Guardian in September 2025.
A couple of things. I do like the visual and philosophical link of using latin two-word phrases for these loosely related plays ... and as long as she can keep her hands off the latin phrase Vox Populi for the third part, she and I will have no beef. But even without Miller's acknowledgement that these are sort of companion pieces, a viewer would pretty easily come to the same conclusion.
The opening, consisting of the lead character dissecting a court case from a specific viewpoint, could be a photostat from it's slightly older sibling, some of the loose festivity vibe carries over... but I'm getting ahead of myself. back to the play.
Inter Alia
"Inter Alia" is another legal drama from Suzie Miller whose combined experiences of legal background and training and writing serve her well for both ideas and process detail. Whereas "Prima Facie" is told from the viewpoint of a senior barrister, Inter Alia is told from the viewpoint of a judge... Jessica Parks.
We are given to understand that Jessica has a strong moral base from her exposition to the audience. She cares about the witnesses and tries to ensure they are not mistreated by the process. But she is also a conflicted parent, trying to manage a home life around professional career with all of the guilts and frustrations that can entail.
Early in the play she briefly suspends the case before her to answer an urgent call from her son, Harry, who is struggling with the almost unsolvable problem of not being able to find his shirt. She helps with that, and in the process of explaining away how she manages it all, she shares with the audience memories of parenting moments with young Harry.
Then it's back to the court case.
Jessica has a happy home life alongside who son and husband Michael, also a member of the legal profession. They are cosy-cute, enjoy each others company and appear to be reliable supports for each other. She is at times a bit of a nosy mum... nothing terribly weird about that... but she cares, it's evident and part of what matters to her.
The play gives us a bit of her fund side as well. Singing at a karaoke... rocking it out... and having some raunchy lounge-room connubials with hubby after a party at their home.
And then, it hits. The dramatic centrepoint of the play... and again, there will be spoilers.
Harry has attended a party... the girl he likes is no longer talking to him and apparently has been nasty about him online. Awkward stuff for a mum to navigate. But as that expands, we find that harry has been charged with the rape of this girl, and now we're of to the races.
The parents have slightly different takes on the matter and that leads to quite a bit of tension. While Jessica loves and trusts her son unconditionally, she also wants to check if there is ANY chance his actions could be interpreted as rape... was consent gained unambiguously, did he treat the young woman respectfully. Dad, though not entirely on another page, wants to ensure that Harry is entirely covered from a legal perspective, not wanting to dig too deeply for the finer details.
As the investigating and legal proceedings continue, eventually news services link Jessica with the sons case and there is plenty of questioning through the media... traditional and social...on whether she is a fit and proper person to adjudicate over legal matters. But most difficult is a heart to heart she has with her son.
My thoughts
Again, it's a very good play. The subject matter of consent and the vague adaptations people cloak that concept in is very much part of a crucial ongoing current conversation. The TV series "Adolescence" handled it brilliantly... the idea of a young man charged with a horrible crime, and parents trying to find ways to accommodate that information into the young man they know. And sadly the answer is simple... rapists, predators and abusers can be and often are people that appear in other ways quite nice.
But I have to admit that I am stuck with this comparison in my head between "Inter Alia" and "Prima Facie" which I know is unfair and irrelevant, and they are two different plays, and comparisons are odious, yada yada yada... and I think my thoughts on this are actually useful in my assessment of this play.
Firstly, I saw "Prima Facie" live in a wonderful theatre amidst audience reactions that elevated the experience. Possibly that provided an unfair advantage.
Also, there were tropes and methods and story telling techniques in "Prima Facie" that I noticed again in "Inter Alia", meaning they were fresher and more novel and more able to spring surprises in the former than in the latter. If I'd seen "Inter Alia" first, it may have been a different story.
And the third point that comes to mind is the performance. And just like comparing plays, how do you compare actors. You're Gandhi was so much better than that guy's Goering? A good part can do so much and I thought the part of Tess was a better part than Jess (yes, I noticed that quirk too... I'm expecting Bess or old Cec in the final part of the trilogy).
Now, forgetting the "seeing it live part", I did find some parts of the format of the show a bit repeated, or unoriginal. As mentioned, the blow by blow dissecting of things happening in the court room is in both shows, and obviously I found it fresher the first time around in "Prima Facie".
Also, from seeing the earlier of Miller's plays, I was more focused on the seemingly unimportant background information and how, like Chekhov's gun, it was never wasted and would come back. The party? Why aren't you and your girlfriend talking? The scratch? I'm not Sherlock (no shit) but I saw it coming a long way off and began to intellectualise (not always a good thing mid-play) how that was the intent of the play, to present a similar story from a different perspective. That guessing where it's going thing is not necessarily unwanted but I enjoyed being snuck up on the first time around.
And this part I feel a bit guilty saying. I'm a big Rosamund Pike fan (my stand out memory was from "World's End", "Wrath of the Titans" and "Gone Girl") but I didn't love her in this role. And, AGAIN, it's partly by comparison with Sheridan Harbridge from "Prima Facie", and they're different roles, for God's sake, and different bloody plays and who the hell am I to sit in judgement of such a wonderful actress.
I just don't feel she delivered enough variance in the light and shade department. Very god in the frantic, worried, stressed shade area. A bit les sin the light. And yep, "Prima Facie" offered quite a lot of quirk, and sass, and fun and Sheridan absolutely chewed it up. But there's also moments in the "Inter Alia"... the karaoke, the couch-sex sessions, where I didn't get the same sense of letting go and vulnerability or the connection with the audience to the same degree.
BUT what do I know. No doubt the playwright's vision and intent was to not show a carbon copy of Tess, and a more harried and put-upon professional woman/mum and she nails that.
They ARE very different plays. "Inter Alia" is NOT a one hander, with hubby and son also in the scenes. The stage has a bit more going on and is less stark and finite. The sound is completely different with a bit more rocking out going on. It addresses such an important topic and, like Adolescence, drums it home more effectively by taking a seemingly clean living "nice " boy from a nice home and revealing the horrible thing he did. And I feel guilty for finding fault in it but the simple fact is I didnt walk away as wowed as I did with "Prima Facie" so this lengthy collection of words is largely trying to figure out why.
I would definitely pay to see it live, and definitely reckon it could be delivered brilliantly in Goulburn.
Materials accessed
- "Inter Alia" - pro-shot video (2025) - Available upon subscription on National Theatre at Home.
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