*Warning: This post contains a spoiler for the play, Prima Facie. Thank you!

Jodie Comer gets out her case file and prepares for a day of legal trials. But wait one second, she’s almost forgotten something: her wig! This is not a fun wig: pink, curly, or super long; this was a very serious wig: one that George Washington might have had to avoid lice as he fought the British. This was a very serious wig. I lean over to my mom next to me:

“Wait, why is she wearing a wig?” I whisper.

My mom whispers back, “She’s a barrister.”

I smile and nod like I understand but I have no idea what she’s talking about.

“A British lawyer.”

Ahh, okay. That makes sense. Has Jodie Comer quit her acting career in favor of being a barrister? No, this is Broadway, but it might as well have been Temple Bar in London.

Prima Facie, now playing on Broadway, which premiered on the West End, deals with the British legal system in a way that prepared me for the conversations we had surrounding the Barristers in A Tale of Two Cities and our jaunt around the Temple Bar area of London. It stars Jodie Comer as a barrister who undergoes a profound change in the way she views the British legal system. Initially a barrister representing those that have harassed or sexually assaulted someone, she believes almost completely in the decency and fairness of the British law system. It is the same idea as what was brought up in one of our lectures, the unofficial doctrine that guides British prime ministers. In our lecture, I learned that the U.K. doesn’t have an official Constitution like the U.S. because those that are elected to the position of prime minister are supposed to share an understanding of protecting Democratic values and to be British for a second: being good chaps. Prime ministers are also elected by the majority party, not directly by the people in a vote. There is an expectation, a social contract essentially, that leaders will be good people, and therefore lead well. There is a similar expectation in the court. The wigs: the tradition of it all, the history of it all, is supposed to remove the individual from the process of finding justice and upholding the law. In the same way that citizens are supposed to believe in the inherent goodness of those in power, the wigs feed into the idea that those in the legal system are fair and will eventually come to justice. But wigs can be intimidating, as can the legal system.

When I think about how the legal system is portrayed in Prima Facie, I think about Mr. Stryver. It’s an on-the-nose name and shows Dickens tendency to sometimes just spell out what he wants to say (sometimes this is very refreshing!), but more so, it really speaks to how the Temple Bar and the British legal system are portrayed in The Tale of Two Cities. He’s a puffed-up man who runs over “weaker people” on the way to his office. He is also one of the leading barristers in London. He is all about the external: he wants others to view him as an all-powerful man, capable of getting the girl (Lucie) while barely lifting a finger. Is he a good chap or is the wig hiding someone who is so individualistic, he sometimes looks beyond reason?

Jodie Comer’s character in Prima Facie finds herself on the other side of the courtroom when she is sexually assaulted by another barrister. For the first time, she questions if the legal system is faultless; if it always is fair; if everyone wearing that wig is a good chap. For the first time, she sees the wigs as intimidating; the pomp and circumstance as scary. There could be a Mr. Stryver standing across from her: individualistic and only concerned with what directly relates to him, as Comer’s character was at the beginning of the play. When she loses the case against her coworker, her view of the legal system is broken. Yet she continues to be a barrister, and perhaps that is the only way that she can make sure other victims get justice. In her questioning of the legal system, she has become a stronger barrister.

As I walk past the wig shop and a solemn coffee shop where barristers take their well-deserved time off, I think about whether they are having similar epiphanies to Comer’s character. As a couple of smartly dressed Brits carry their cappuccinos past the wig shop, I think about the passage of time and how so much can change in who is represented in the legal system but so much can stay the same. Is one of the barristers sitting in the coffee shop in their robes a Stryver? Individualistic to a fault, consumed by their corrupt sense of what is just; or are they a Sydney, the long-suffering barrister? Sydney is sensitive, empathetic, and in touch with his emotions, but also insecure and consumed with his own suffering. When Sydney puts on the wig, he is still Sydney. When Stryver puts on the wig, he is still Stryver. And when the barrister in Prima Facie puts on the wig, she is still herself.

At the end of the day, we bring our own biases, ideas, and understandings into the courtroom. We are individuals, with or without the wig. When we view the courtroom, whether it be in the U.S. or London, we want the people to be judging to be like the mannequins in the wig shop: neutral expression, serious eyes, understanding eyebrows, always pointed towards justice, but the reality is that we aren’t mannequins. We aren’t AI either. And who knows if the mannequins would be fairer than us humans? A mannequin can’t feel. Can’t understand. I look at the mannequin in the wig shop again: it looks cold, unfeeling, and well, a mannequin. We want barristers who can feel, who can change their minds, and change them again. Barristers who are real people under the wigs.