‘I’ll write it for you.’
These five words, spoken by award-winning playwright Suzie Miller, made Australian actress Heather Mitchell’s dream to portray US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (RBG) a reality.
The play, RBG: Of Many, One, returns to Queensland for a season at the Gold Coast’s HOTA and the Sydney Theatre this month after a sellout season at QPAC last year.
One woman show
Prima Facie playwright (and lawyer), Miller wrote the role of Ginsburg especially for Mitchell. Born out of a conversation the two shared during the pandemic, while sipping socially distanced tea and discussing Ginsburg’s recent death, the play features Mitchell playing Ginsburg and 25 other major figures who played key roles in RBG’s life.
Each of the play’s three acts has Mitchell voicing three different US presidents: Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Donald Trump.
Premiered in 2022 by the Sydney Theatre Company, RBG: Of Many, One is the first stage production in the world to focus on Ginsburg’s life.
Priscilla Jackman’s direction reconjures RBG with storytelling that seeks resonances with today’s political landscape. Stage designer, David Fleischer, delivers a bare-bones set placing Mitchell’s performance front-and-centre as the play chronicles RBG’s wins and dissents, her steps forward and back and her pivotal moments.
Relevance to Australians
Before she died, Justice Bader Ginsburg told NPR Radio women lawyers had not been welcome when she graduated from college and she had focussed on ‘evening up women and men’s rights’. Mitchell believes RBG’s life has relevance for Australian audiences.
‘I remember we were sitting, masked, talking about Ruth’s life and the extraordinary impact she had,’ says Mitchell, of her initial conversation with playwright Suzie Miller.
‘Being a lawyer, (Miller) had such insights into Ruth’s judicial career. I knew a lot more about her personal life, having done a lot of reading about her. I remember I said to Suzie, “Gosh, you know, I’d really love to play her” and Suzie just said, “Well, I’ll write it for you”.’
‘Within about three months, she had written the first draft and sent it to me and I was just blown away. Then came the role itself and the preparation and the deep diving, the reading. Ruth was so wonderful and she’s a gift for any actor.’
Australian actor Heather Mitchell is the first in the world to portray US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. IMAGE Rene Vaile
Mitchell, who has built an enviable career on Australian stages and screens since graduating from NIDA in the 80s, feels a kinship with Ginsburg, a woman with whom Mitchell has things in common.
Ginsburg and Mitchell both married men called Marty, had American fathers, lost their Jewish mothers before the age of 20, had two children and survived cancer.
For Mitchell, who never met Ginsburg but ‘feels, strangely, almost as though I did,’ these parallels came to profoundly inform and shape her deeply felt and mesmeric performance.
‘We had a great deal in common, it turned out and that surprised me and comforted me. She was still living in a time when women struggled much more in the workplace. I’m in my 60s now and she was in her 60s when she moved onto the Supreme Court,’ Mitchell muses.
Actor Heather Mitchell has life experiences in common with the character she plays in RBG: Of Many, One. IMAGE supplied
The deftness and clarity of Miller’s writing and the immediacy and power of Mitchell’s performance both imbue RBG: Of Many, One with a real sense of Ginsburg during the 27 years she spent on the Supreme Court. Her loathing of hypocrisy and prejudice, reverence for detail, formidable dedication and great empathy are all portrayed.
‘Ruth, I think, did not suffer fools gladly and I admire that about her enormously, but she also suffered enormously herself. I think that probably also informed the kind of legal mind she had,’ Mitchell says.
IMAGE of the real Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Rutgers Law School
Legacy in danger
‘Her legacy on the Supreme Court seems in such danger with the re-election of Trump and erosion of abortion rights and women’s rights, more generally, in the US. Whenever I am onstage, playing her, I feel as though I am sort of communing with her. I appreciate that feeling more now than ever.’
After sell-out seasons in Sydney, RBG: Of Many, One enjoyed a successful 2024 national tour and this year plays the Gold Coast before returning to the Sydney Theatre for another season.
For Mitchell, performing at HOTA allows her to work in ‘a beautiful theatre’.
‘I love performing in Queensland. My sister lives on the Sunshine Coast and I have a lot of friends in Brisbane, so I always enjoy my time there.’
Director Priscilla Jackman
Designer David Fleischer
Lighting Designer Alexander Berlage
Composer & Sound Designer Paul Charlier
Voice & Dialect Coach Jennifer White
The play is supported by STC Angels in association with Frances Allan & Ian Narev, Mark Coulter & Dr Adam Bayes. Presenting Partner: Allens.
RBG: Of Many, One is at HOTA from April 3 to 5 2025 and The Sydney Theatre from 10 April to 17 May 2025.
FEATURE PHOTO at top of story of Heather Mitchell as Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Rene Vaile
