Inter Alia - Review

National Theatre, London

****

Written by Suzie Miller

Directed by Justin Martin

Rosamund Pike

Inter Alia is another theatrical gem from Suzie Miller, who in 2019 premiered Prima Facie. Staying within the jurisprudent ambit of the English legal system, Inter Alia sees Miller focus on Crown Court judge Jessica Parks and the challenges she faces in her domestic life when teenage son Harry is accused of a sex crime. 

Miller offers a meticulously detailed analysis of Park’s privileged life on and off the bench, where with her KC husband Michael, middle-class luxuries are plentiful until the idyll is painfully pierced. The script offers up a troubling glimpse of the manosphere, alongside Miller’s descent into her own personal hell as she finds herself facing profoundly personal conflicts. 

Coincidentally (one imagines), there are hints of the recent TV drama Adolescence in Miller’s narrative and if there is a flaw in the play that otherwise offers up a powerfully sympathetic critique of 21st century feminism, it is that much like Adolescence, the completely white casting of these stories’ lead families fails to reflect some of the more complex diversities of today’s world. And the end of Miller’s story, while being acutely painful, lacks a credibility.

The evening’s stagecraft however is world class. Rosamund Pike is Parks, onstage throughout the play’s 1 hr 40min one-act entirety, in a performance that is a breathtaking tour de force. As her character faces agonising realisations, Pike’s mastery of the dialogue is sensational, picking up the slightest nuances and inflections in Miller’s acutely perceptive script.

Jamie Glover steps up as her husband, also delivering a stunning take on middle-aged husbandry and fatherhood, with Jasper Talbot completing the play’s adult trio as the hapless Harry, again with an assured turn.

The production also showcases the flawless technical competencies of the National Theatre. Ben and Max Ringham’s sound design is exquisite, equally Natasha Chivers’s lighting work. Miriam Buether’s set is a wonder. In essence a staging of simple domesticity that momentarily can transform into a courtroom - however the brilliance of Buether’s achievement in the play’s final act has to be seen to be believed.

Runs until 13th September

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan