It’s a Monday night at the Hayden Orpheum cinema in Sydney’s lower north shore, and the premier screening of Inter Alia is full.
It’s a crowded house for a screening of a live play. Yes, that’s right, this is a cinematic recording of the National Theatre’s buzzy new West End production.
But before you write off the idea of a recorded play, this is nothing like the bootleg films where theatre-goers obstruct the screen midway through.
In fact, it’s better. You can see a bead of sweat and a subtle shift in facial expression. Plus, you don’t have to fork out the cost of an international air flight to watch it live in London.
The production comes six years after Australian playwright, Suzie Miller’s Tony Award-Winning show Prima Facie – a one-woman play about a criminal defence barrister (played by Jodie Comer) whose belief in the law is shattered when she experiences sexual assault and confronts the justice system from the victim’s side.
This time, Miller puts motherhood and masculinity into the spotlight, with a searing examination of the manosphere, toxic masculinity, consent, rape culture and its devastating impact on young boys.
The story centres on Jessica (played by Oscar-nominated actor Rosamund Pike), a sharp Crown Court Judge at the top of her career. Behind the robe, she is a feminist, a loving wife and a supportive parent. She has spent much of her career adjudicating countless sexual violence cases, and as a result, understands how the law systemically fails female victims.
So when her son is accused of raping a young woman at a party, her seemingly solid values are shaken, forcing her to confront tensions between her professional commitment to law, her role as a mother and her feminist values.
The result is a confronting portrait of modern masculinity and the question of accountability in contemporary parenting.
We are first introduced to Jessica as the woman who has it all: a successful career and a proud mother who has raised her son with strong feminist values. In flashbacks, we admire her for having honest conversations with her young son about porn, respect and consent. She does all the “right things” leaving the audience stumped as to how it all went wrong.
Could Jessica have done better? Did she not start the conversations early enough? Was her parenting always going to be powerless to the influence of social media?
But there is another throughline in the story that the audience hasn’t considered: why are mothers the sole bearers of responsibility?
Throughout the play, we are repeatedly made aware that there is an imbalance in the domestic load. The time Jessica is called out of court because of an “urgent” phone call from her son: he can’t find his shirt. When her son is bullied, the school calls Jessica, instead of her husband, to collect him. When she simultaneously juggles the ironing, cooking and cleaning, while her husband has a shower, ahead of a dinner party they are hosting.
I’m shocked at the knowing laughs from the audience who see their own experiences played out by Jessica.
Unfortunately, it takes a rape accusation for Jessica (and the audience) to understand the real consequences of these seemingly micro acts.
In an emotionally-charged scene, Jessica confronts her husband and asks why he didn’t step up. Why he failed to have those conversations with their son. Why he wasn’t a better role model.
To which he explains that a deep-rooted culture of misogyny has left him feeling ill-equipped to be able to raise his son as a “good man”, when he himself can’t be sure that all his sexual experiences have been consensual. I see a few men shifting in their cinema seats.
The message is clear: women have been fighting this fight for too long, and it’s not working. We need men involved in the conversation to help us come up with solutions.
What follows, and I won’t give any spoilers, is a confronting examination of the social, cultural and legal systems that fail us all. It’s a story that will hit parents hard. But more than that, it’s a story that affects everyone.
After the screening, Suzie Miller sits down for an exclusive in-person Q&A to unpack some of the audience’s burning questions.
She recounts speaking to several female high court judges, all of whom shared the same feelings about how success in the household challenged male power, and as a result, they felt the need to downplay their careers and achievements.
She then goes on to recall the countless sexual assault victims she spoke to in research for the script. One of the repeated messages that struck her was that for the majority of the accusers, above all, they wanted one thing: to be believed.
Inter Alia is on at select cinemas now. Visit ntlive.com.
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