RBG: Of Many,One

 

RBG Of Many,One by Suzie Millar.

Directed by Priscilla Jackman and performed by Heather Mitchell. Designer. David Fleischer. Lighting Designer. Alexander Berlage. Composer and Sound Designer Paul Charlier. Assistant Director Sharon Millerchip. Voice and Accent Coach. Jennifer White. The Playhouse. Canberra Theatre Centre. Bookings:02 62752700 or www.canberratheatrecentre.com.au.

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

 

It is almost two years since I reviewed Sydney Theatre Company’s production of RBG:Of Many, One. (See below) Last night at the Canberra Theatre Centre’s Playhouse, I viewed the touring production through the prism of passing time. Heather Mitchell’s performance remains as monumental as ever. Her embodiment of Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s spirit, character and physicality is as though the Supreme Court judge was on stage recounting her life and career to a full house. Her seamless and entirely convincing transitions to other characters in Suzie Millar’s funny, provocative, and moving  play is to be bewitched by the brilliance of a  chameleon of the art of acting. With a change of voice or gesture she presents Presidents Clinton and Obama, her beloved husband Marty, her childhood and younger self and an assortment of characters and colleagues. Director Priscilla Jackman has made this revival as fresh, as alive and as thought provoking as ever. RBG: Of Many, One is as though it is as fresh minted as when I saw the production at STC’s The Wharf Theatre in 2022.

But time passes and world events throw a different light on the production. Ginsberg’s passionate response to gender inequity and the dominant presence of men in positions of power and authority appears more pronounced with the fervent sense of injustice from an intellectual giant. Sadly Ginsberg lived long enough to bear the bitter disappointment of Hillary Clinton’s defeat, but not long enough to witness Joe Biden’s electoral defeat of the much despised Donald Trump. One can only imagine how she would react to a presumption of Trump’s return to the White House. Or the implications behind  Grace Tame’s experience and the Brittany Higgins affair.

Director, actor and writer have given audiences a revival as magnificent as the performance reviewed below and a tribute that continues to pay grateful homage to the remarkable legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsberg. But it does more. It reminds us of the ideals that motivated this remarkable woman and that her battles and her achievements are signposts to a better world for all irrespective of race, colour or creed and under the guidance and protection of the law.

Although performed on a different stage in a different city and at a different time, I include here my 2022 review. Last night’s performance was as powerful as I remember and on a second viewing spontaneously brought me to my feet in ovation with the entire audience.

 

Heather Mitchell’s performance as Supreme Court Judge Ruth Bader Ginsberg in STC’s RGB: Of Many, One is pure perfection. Playwright Suzie Miller has crafted a theatrical eulogy as brilliant as Ginsberg’s legal mind. Director Priscilla Jackman’s tight and engagingly fluid production is as sharply staged and as clearly revealing and logical as Ginsberg’s judgements and battle for universal equality for women.

But it is Mitchell’s performance that places her at the very Pantheon of the actor’s craft. In 95 minutes of magnetic and unforgettable acting Mitchell bestrides the Wharf Theatre stage like the legal colossus that Ginsberg  inhabited upon America’s Supreme Court. We discover Ginsberg impatiently waiting for a phone call from President Clinton to confirm her appointment to the Supreme Court. Miller reveals a woman as human and as nervously expectant as anyone who might be awaiting  life changing opportunity. Throughout the performance Miller and Mitchell introduce us to a woman, who, in spite of her position, her indefatigable battles for justice, her courageous will to be true to herself, her profession and her mother’s early advice remains simply human. Her girlish passion and belief in what she knows to be right, her reliance on her mother’s wisdom, her girlish awe in the presence of a president, her victorious delight at every case that she wins and her resolve not to be cowed by defeat or confrontation all reveal an extraordinary woman who believed in what she knew to be right and dedicated her life to creating a better world for both men and women.

Mitchell’s astounding performance traces Ginsberg’s life over her childhood to her last breath in 2020. With only the occasional stage hand to pass her a prop or change a setting, Mitchell, chameleon like transforms from schoolgirl to young wife to feisty defendant, grandmother to the Associate Justice at lunch with Obama, in the court, at the opera or at her exercises. This is a panoramic account of a woman, whose indelible mark on the judicial system and humanitarian cause has left a legacy to inspire generations of lawmakers.

Millar does far more than make audiences aware of Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s  professional achievements, her generational contribution to legal reform and her elevated status to cultural icon. First and foremost Millar reminds us that Ginsberg, apart from her achievements in law was a human being. RBG: Of Many, One is a moving and heart -warming love story between Ginsberg and her husband, Marty. It depicts her joy at motherhood and her devotion to her grandchildren and their reciprocal love. We hear her admission of shame and guilt at her outburst against Trump, not because it is the natural reaction of a concerned American, but because of the conflict it exposes between her duty to the law and her professional responsibility to remain detached from the political process. However, Mitchell’s performance leaves one in no doubt. RBG was a compassionate, loving and also vulnerable human being.

Photos by Prudence Upton