While Suzie Miller has long held a strong admiration for women judges using their powerful legal positions to forge new pathways, the Australian lawyer turned playwright is building on her own reputation for groundbreaking theatre.
Perth audiences are fortunate enough to experience back-to-back seasons of just that over the next month, with Black Swan State Theatre Company presenting two of Miller’s critically acclaimed plays, Ruth Bader Ginsburg-inspired RBG: Of Many, One, and Prima Facie, the former opening at Heath Ledger Theatre on June 13.
The Sydney Theatre Company production may have had its world premiere in 2022, but the timing of this national Australian tour of RBG: Of Many, One could be no less apt, given the US election looming large later in the year and in the aftermath of the US Supreme Court overturning the Roe v. Wade constitutional right to an abortion. A right Bader Ginsburg was a fierce advocate for during her years of blazing a trail through the US judiciary system fighting against gender discrimination.
For someone so slight in stature, five-foot tall Bader Ginsburg, aka The Notorious RBG, lived an extraordinary big life.
![Heather Mitchell as Ruth Bader Ginsburg in RBG: Of Many, One.](https://timesofsydney.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/02eb33f0643d4422bdfa29a449b5a03418b87f5c-4x3-x107y0w1707h1280.jpg)
Directed by Priscilla Jackman, actor Heather Mitchell (Love Me, Upright, Wakefield) stars in the intimate one-woman theatrical portrait, which Miller wrote specifically for the Australian screen and stage stalwart.
Mitchell encapsulates the role with such beautifully accurate nuance — from her striking resemblance to voice and mannerisms — the audience could be forgiven for momentarily forgetting this is not the real former Supreme Court judge speaking on stage.
![Heather Mitchell as Ruth Bader Ginsburg in RBG: Of Many, One.](https://timesofsydney.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/0e684b0d5dd488fbc6fa1da1ac971988f1796b30-4x3-x107y0w1707h1280.jpg)
It is an achievement of no small feat, given the staging asks Mitchell to not only play Bader Ginsburg throughout her life — aging before your eyes from 13 to 87 years old — but inhabit a multitude of other characters across the 95-minute performance, done so with seemingly effortless ease.
Mitchell’s commanding performance is simply mesmerising as she paints a vivid picture of the Bader Ginsburg story and her two great love affairs, the law and husband Marty.
![Heather Mitchell as Ruth Bader Ginsburg in RBG: Of Many, One.](https://timesofsydney.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/bc087169ab86b30e971952426c91c40b6ed537ff-16x9-x0y52w1920h1080.jpg)
With pockets of humour, the play is divided into three distinct periods of Bader Ginsburg’s life — her early years, her rise in the US Supreme Court and her status as a cultural and feminist icon — while featuring conversations with three presidents during her time on the US Supreme Court, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump.
The production takes off like a rocket as she waits on the phone call from Clinton that would change her life forever, appointed as one of nine judges, and only the second woman, to sit on the US Supreme Court.
![Heather Mitchell as Ruth Bader Ginsburg in RBG: Of Many, One.](https://timesofsydney.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/2c8e49ac0ca76682787ecf2caf5c762dcd21237e-4x3-x107y0w1707h1280.jpg)
The scenes between Justice Ginsburg and Obama as they dance around the elephant in the room surrounding her potential retirement is a beautiful construction between two masterminds, while Mitchell’s impersonation of Trump is frighteningly accurate.
Even someone as witty and of the utmost intelligence as Bader Ginsburg was capable of being fallible, bringing herself to feel great shame, a poignancy not lost on the audience knowing what was to happen after her death in September 2020.
![Heather Mitchell as Ruth Bader Ginsburg in RBG: Of Many, One.](https://timesofsydney.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/fb80d42bd0bee32010948a471961d0fda7298347-4x3-x143y0w1707h1280.jpg)
A Jewish mother, daughter, wife, and firm believer in democracy, equality and justice — where no-one is above the law — Bader Ginsburg was a tenacious woman who held her ground and altered the course of history, its ramifications felt worldwide.
Just like the many dissenting judgements she leaves behind, RBG: Of Many, One is a supremely powerful blueprint for change and an inspirational theatre experience that stirs the soul.