PRIMA FACIE

In the organizer's words:

PRIMA FACIE

by Suzie Miller

translated from the English by Anne Rabe

Premiere March 01, 2024

Tessa Ensler is a tough criminal defense lawyer. In her early thirties, she has achieved what very few people would have thought she could: the path from a milieu without privileges to an elite university and then to a top law firm. Her supreme discipline is the defense in sexual assault cases. Is her acquittal rate so high because she is a woman, as is rumored? Or is it because she is so good at spotting gaps and contradictions in the statements of female victims? In any case, Tessa is proud that she doesn't torture her counterpart in the witness box like some of her colleagues, but she also believes in the legal system, which decides in favor of the accused when in doubt. But this conviction is shaken when she herself is raped. The perpetrator is no stranger, but her colleague Julian, with whom she had an office affair, but perhaps also the beginning of a deeper love affair. When she presses charges, she realizes that the prima facie evidence does not speak for her - after all, in addition to their initial attraction, several bottles of wine were also involved - but she is not only interested in personal justice, but also in settling accounts with a justice system created by men, in which she has believed all her life.

Like Ferdinand von Schirach, Australian author Suzie Miller worked as a criminal defense lawyer herself - in the human rights sector, and today she writes for theater, film and television. In 2020, "Prima Facie" was awarded the most important Australian prizes for new drama as well as the Olivier Award, the highest award in British theater. It celebrated success in London's West End in 2022 and has been on Broadway in New York since spring 2023. The furious monodrama, in which Tessa tells her life story piece by piece and plays all the characters who appear, is staged by in-house director Nora Schlocker, who has brought both contemporary drama and classics to the stage with sensitivity and clarity in recent seasons.

Artistic Director

Production Nora Schlocker
Stage and costumes Marie Caroline Rössle
Music Albrecht Ziepert
Lighting Gerrit Jurda
Dramaturgy Almut Wagner

Price information:

from 10€ for students