Name: Prima Facie on Broadway starring Jodie Comer
Start: 2023-04-11
End: 2023-07-02
Location: Golden Theatre

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Prima Facie on Broadway starring Jodie Comer - NYC

Genre: Play

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Prima Facie on Broadway starring Jodie Comer

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Jodie Comer stars in the one-woman play *Prima Facie* on Broadway in spring 2023 for a limited engagement.

Emmy Award and BAFTA winner Jodie Comer is an English actress best known for playing Villanelle in the hit BBC television series *Killing Eve*.

Born March 11, 1993, in Liverpool, England, Comer began acting in her early teens at a local drama school before she booked her first job in a show called The Royal Today in 2008. From there, she landed many guest roles and appearances in popular dramas such as *Law & Order: UK* and *Waterloo Road*. One of her first prominent roles was as Chloe Gemell in the comedy-drama series *My Mad Fat Diary*. This portrayal led to larger roles in television series, including the lead character Ivy Moxan in the drama *Thirteen* on BBC Three. Comer made her film debut in *England Is Mine*, a biopic about The Smiths' Morrissey.

Her breakout role came in 2018 when she was cast in the BBC thriller *Killing Eve* as Villanelle, a ruthless assassin who becomes entangled with MI6 agent Eve Polastri, played by Sandra Oh. The drama became a massive hit, skyrocketing Comer to mainstream success and securing her an Emmy Award and British Academy Television Award.

In 2021, Comer starred opposite Ryan Reynolds in the film *Free Guy*. She then earned another British Academy Television Award for the Channel 4 drama *Help*, in which she played a care home worker during the Covid-19 pandemic. She starred in another star-studded drama, *The Last Duel*, in 2021 alongside Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and [Adam Driver](https://www.newyorktheatreguide.com/stars-on-stage/adam-driver).

Comer made her West End debut in 2022 in the play *Prima Facie*, a one-woman show which earned her critical acclaim, an Evening Standard Theatre Award, and an Olivier Award nomination. The show transfers to Broadway in spring 2023, when Comer reprises the role of Tessa for a limited engagement.

Jodie Comer - NY

On the face of it and, frankly, on stage at the [Golden Theatre](https://www.newyorktheatreguide.com/theatres/golden-theatre), the one-woman drama [*Prima Facie*](https://www.newyorktheatreguide.com/show/25983-prima-facie-tickets) starring [Jodie Comer](https://www.newyorktheatreguide.com/stars-on-stage/jodie-comer) is too slick and tidily constructed for its own good. In it, Tessa, a British barrister known for defending men accused of sexual assault, gets date raped herself. The parallels are plain.

Suzie Miller’s play offers a reckoning with the before and after. Only in the wake of her assault does Tessa fully wrap her brain around a terrible inequity. The symbol for justice is a woman, and in rape cases, her scales tip toward men. Unfortunately, that’s not exactly headline news.

Running 100 unbroken minutes, the production is Exhibit A of how a focused and fierce performance can elevate a work. Comer’s breathless star turn in her Broadway debut does that. Comer, who speaks for several minor characters, has won various awards for her portrait, including an [Olivier](https://www.londontheatre.co.uk/theatre-news/news/2023-olivier-awards-full-list-of-winners). She is riveting, even in a late section where Tessa spouts statistics and the play teeters into movie-of-the-week territory. 

Director Justin Martin keeps Tessa in near-nonstop motion on Miriam Buether’s set lined with soaring floor-to-ceiling case files. Tessa periodically climbs atop a heavy wooden table to make a point. It’s a stagy trick, but it gets attention. 

Like Tessa, the production is alive. There’s a subtle heartbeat-like throb underscoring the action, incidental music, and bright flashes punctuating scenes thanks to sound designers Ben and Max Ringham, composer Rebecca Lucy Taylor, and lighting designer Natasha Chivers, respectively. 

When we meet Tessa, she’s in court and at the top of her game. All smirks and smug self-satisfaction, she’s a shameless showboater in a robe and horsehair wig. She gleefully likens taking down a witness to a fight to the death. Armed with her legal cunning and killer instinct, she fires off questions that are aimed to slay, not just wound — bang-bang-bang! She shapes her fingers into a pistol as she revels. 

When it comes to blasting holes in the testimony of an anguished woman alleging sexual assault, she is just as merciless. Tessa says she is in the business of legal truth — what’s provable beyond a doubt. It’s easy to connect the dots between Tessa and Villanelle, the *Killing Eve* assassin that made Comer a star — and accounts for raucous entrance applause.

Tessa is in her element in court, but she’s far less so when she’s back home in hardscrabble Liverpool. A brief, fitful visit with her mother and brothers shows she’s left this world behind. Since landing a spot in law school at Cambridge, she’s moved on. 

In London, she’s a star on the rise, whether in court drag or a flirty green dress for a date with Julian, a colleague she shags on a sofa at work. A week later, after drinks and sex earlier in the evening, Julian rapes Tessa in her home. The details spill out of her in a harrowing torrent echoed by an onstage rainstorm.

Tessa knows the law. Her case is iffy, but she decides to press charges. Some 782 days later, she has her day in court, where she knows she’ll be subjected to the same kind of attack she uses against witnesses. The outcome of the trial is fairly predictable. Tessa — who, by the way, is still a defense lawyer — seizes the opportunity to make a statement about the need for change.

In the end, Miller, an Australian writer with a law background, makes *Prima Facie* a message play. What it’s saying isn’t revelatory, but it is worthwhile. And Comer is a first-class messenger. 

[*Prima Facie* is at the Golden Theatre through July 2. Get *Prima Facie* tickets on New York Theatre Guide.](https://www.newyorktheatreguide.com/show/25983-prima-facie-tickets)

*Photo credit: Jodie Comer in Prima Facie. (Photo by Bronwen Sharp, retouch by Caz Lock)*

'Prima Facie' review — Jodie Comer makes a riveting Broadway debut in this legal drama

Read our four-star review of Suzie Miller's *Prima Facie* on Broadway, which stars Emmy Award winner Jodie Comer, at the Golden Theatre through July 2.

Designed by Herbert J. Krapp for Irwin Chanin, the John Golden Theatre officially opened as the Theatre Masque on February 24, 1927 with the play *Puppets of Passion*. The Golden Theatre was purchased by impresario John Golden in 1937, who renamed the theatre after himself.

The building was used as a cinema in the late 1940s and 1950s before the Shubert Organization purchased and restored it to traditional theatre usage. The exterior of the Golden Theatre was used in the film adaptation of *A Chorus Line*.

## How to get to the Golden Theatre on Broadway

The Golden Theatre, on 45th Street between Eighth Avenue and Broadway, is closest to the 42nd Street - Port Authority subway stop on the A, C, or E line. The theatre is also accessible by bus, with the closest stops being 8th Ave/W 46th St. on the M20 and M104 lines; 7th Ave/W. 44th St. on the M104 line; and 8th Ave/W 43rd St. on the M20, M104, and M34A-SBS line.

Prima Facie on Broadway starring Jodie Comer Tickets

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