Theatre Review: Inter Alia

by Alaina Zhang ​for The 44 North, Newsletter & Reviews Editor

Rosamund Pike. Photo by Manuel Harlan.

“We're all failing a generation of boys, and therefore we’re failing a whole generation of girls.”

Jessica is being fitted in her judge's robe for the first time. It’s supposed to be a glorious moment—a recognition of her success—but she feels more anxiety than pride. She watches her son Harry and her husband Michael look at her, then whisper something to each other. They laugh. She doesn’t know what they said. The room is full of mirrors, reflecting a harsh sun.

She wishes the whole process would quicken—numb the powerlessness. She’s worried this moment will tip the family balance; her husband didn’t get nominated as a judge…

A live theatre play written by Suzie Miller, which premiered globally in 2025, Inter Alia follows the journey of maverick London Crown Court Judge Jessica Parks as her son is suspected of rape. Mother, wife, judge—her life is a series of transitions between these different roles, until the rape case brings reality crashing down. These identities suddenly find themselves forced to pick sides. 

On one hand, the play is another story about teenage crime among others, such as Defending Jacob (2020) and Adolescence (2025). However, after seeing Inter Alia, I found myself thinking about what it means to live in a family where you’re the only woman. Jessica’s life is not an individual case, but one among many other women, wives, and mothers in the current age. Living as a wife who is always trying to protect her husband’s ego and a mother whose son is becoming more distant than ever, Jessica is in a constant loop of wondering if being “too successful” is the reason she finds herself alienated in her own family, and from the husband-son conversations she witnesses as a bystander. 

I was not fortunate enough to have seen this in person, but the charisma of live theatre was contagious even through the movie theatre screen. The Jessica Parks played by Rosamund Pike is so real in her struggle—her successful career is constantly overshadowed by the men around her, small violences that threaten to make her doubt herself and what she has achieved in an occupation also dominated by men. 

Recently, I attended a language exchange meetup where one of the topics was “Is it better to be married than to be single?” My mind drifted to Inter Alia. Yes, Jessica finds motherly fulfillment through her relationship with her son Harry, and romantic love in her husband Michael, but those familial relationships cannot be untangled from the legal fiasco which threatens to destroy her own independence and career. She begins to wonder if she failed as a mother. She finds herself becoming the lawyer she hates the most, defending a potential rapist against the words of an innocent young woman whose life might be ruined by sexual assault. 

As I heard the arguments for why being married was better, the one argument that was repeated over and over again was “You’ll be lonely if you’re single.” This was also spoken from a group of mostly women, citing their personal experiences, and something about it made me feel uncomfortable. 

Inter Alia, among other things, is a word commonly used in legal contexts to indicate that a particular assertion or claim is one of several possibilities. Marriage is only one lifestyle among others. Making loneliness the main argument and instilling a societal fear in women that not marrying is subjecting oneself to an unhappy life, is the very type of thinking that Inter Alia warns audiences against. I’d like to think that the play is not anti-marriage, anti-family, nor anti-children, but that it supports the many amazing, unique ways for a woman to live in the 21st century, not bound by phantom, patriarchal fears of solitude and misery.