Auditioning for the role of criminal defence barrister Tessa Ensler in Suzie Miller’s solo tour de force Prima Facie is the first time actor Sophia Forrest has not tried to shave a few years off their age to land a part.
Set to turn 30 in November, the same age as Ensler, the WA Academy of Performing Arts graduate has already been fortunate enough to work on some incredible scripts — including Lauren Gunderson’s I and You with Theatre 180 in 2021 — but none as challenging and groundbreaking as human rights lawyer turned writer Miller’s 2023 Olivier Award-winning play.
Written in 2017, Prima Facie follows Ensler, whose life is turned upside down when she — like almost one in three women — becomes a victim of sexual assault, placing her on the opposite side of the witness stand as it examines the price victims pay when speaking out and a legal system that sets them up to fail with burden of proof.
“I was drawn to Tessa for her intelligence. She’s vivacious and ferocious and in the first few scenes of the play, we see her in her prime and she’s ruthless and brilliant,” Forrest shares.
“The audience is taken on a journey, seeing her be assaulted and completely torn apart, and despite living through the worst time of her life, she continues to fight. She never loses her sense of self and her sense of justice. Even though she loses her faith in the law, she never stops believing it can get better.”
Prima Facie sees Forrest return to Black Swan State Theatre Company after making their professional theatre debut in the company’s 2017 supernatural thriller Let The Right One In.
It was Forrest’s first year after graduation, during which they started pre-production on TV show Love Child a week after final showcase at WAAPA, and also shot Aquaman opposite Jason Momoa and Nicole Kidman.
“I think I had a very unrealistic start to my career,” Forrest says, who has since filmed Ride Like A Girl and Seriously Red.
“It’s been tumultuous and it’s unpredictable and I feel like I’ve finally learnt to embrace that and enjoy a life outside of acting. I was feeling pretty happy with my life away from acting until this role came up.
“I auditioned with the complete thorough confidence that I wasn’t going to get the role, and just enjoyed having the opportunity for a free one-on-one with (director) Kate Champion. Then was flabbergasted when I got the call saying that I’d booked it.”
That call came in the last week of December 2023 as Forrest walked into a restaurant for a dinner date.
“I sat in silence the entire dinner, because I was just so flummoxed,” they laugh.
“I enjoyed Christmas and New Year, telling everyone who would listen, completely bemused, and then printed my script on January 2 and started the long process of trying to learn the lines.
“Everyone asks ‘how do you possibly learn all those lines?’ and the truth of it is, it’s really boring. It is repetition and rote learning. I think I’ve written the entire play out now twice.”
Based in Sydney, the middle child of Andrew and Nicola Forrest relishes any opportunity to find themselves back in WA.
“Perth will always be home and the first thing I do is catch up with my family,” the former St Hilda’s student says.
“My brother and his girlfriend actually picked me up from the airport and they were waiting in the terminal for me. It certainly makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.”
The support is welcome as Forrest’s role tackles the the harrowing statistic and all-too-common story playing out across society, as seen in the Bruce Lehrmann and Brittany Higgins legal proceedings.
“The law is structured to protect cis white heterosexual wealthy men and it sets victims of sexual assault up for failure,” Forrest states.
“I think the whole country watched with bated breath as that went down. It’s interesting how many times I’ve been asked this question and people refer to it as the ‘Higgins case’ not the ‘Lehrmann case’, which is understandable because Brittany was the one on trial. She was the one who had her life torn apart and publicly scrutinised. Bruce Lehrmann got to sit there in all his entitlement and say nothing, as he has the legal right to do.
“This play holds up a mirror to that case, and the hundreds and thousands of cases around Australia that don’t make it to court. Brittany was so incredibly brave, and it is women like that who are shining a spotlight on this issue. I’m glad to add to the conversation in my own way with playing Tessa.”
Prima Facie will be the third Miller play presented by Black Swan State Theatre Company, after Dust in 2014 and this month’s season of RBG: Of Many, One starring Heather Mitchell as American judiciary trailblazer Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Black Swan artistic director Kate Champion had the privilege of seeing Prima Facie at its world premiere at the Stables Theatre, Sydney in 2019, before Jodie Comer was cast in the 2022 West End production, which transferred to Broadway the following year.
Miller reworked the play into a novel in 2023 and a film is in the creative pipeline.
While Champion has steered away from watching the prominent Comer production, she says there is no escaping some of the extraordinary similarities between Prima Facie and Australia’s most recent highly publicised sexual assault case.
“Suzie wrote this before any of that occurred, after working for decades with women who were victims of sexual assault,” Champion says.
“I wish this play wasn’t still relevant, but it seems to have become even more relevant as we just don’t get it right. The statistics do weigh down on you, on how few women even bring it to court, let alone are successful, and are not attacked in the cliche of a dark laneway, but by someone they know.
“I think it actually bolsters you to know how important it is for art to bring this issue to the point, in this way.”
Prima Facie is at Heath Ledger Theatre, July 1 to 21. Tickets at blackswantheatre.com.au.
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