A trailblazing lawyer, justice and only the second woman to be appointed to the US Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg (or ‘RBG’ to her many fans) spent her life determinedly making her own way on an untrodden – often significantly road-blocked – path.
Changing the face of the American legal system and becoming a cultural icon in the process, it is hard to think of a more fitting focus for a solo play.
In RBG: Of Many, One, Australian acting legend Heather Mitchell dons Ginsburg’s judicial robes to deliver a compelling portrait of the American icon, who passed away in 2020, aged 87. Born in Brooklyn in 1933, Ginsburg rose to the top of her class at Columbia Law School, battling systemic discrimination in the legal world. She eventually became the second woman appointed to the US Supreme Court in 1993, known for her considered dissenting judgements against the often-conservative majority decision.
Written from the perspective of Ginsburg, the play follows her life, some of her most important cases and her encounters with three of the presidents in power during her 27-year term on the bench.
First performed in 2022, then again in 2024, the critically acclaimed work from Australian playwright and legal mind Suzie Miller makes its New Zealand debut following another successful season across Australia.
Experienced director Priscilla Jackman is tasked with delivering the story to stage with artistic skill and resonance. She says it’s exciting to have the work continue to connectith audiences, but it is impossible to ignore the reason RBG’s work in protecting constitutional rights through the court in areas like gender equality, civil rights, and access to healthcare is so relevant.
“We knew this was a play that’s about an absolutely extraordinary singular woman and her contribution, particularly to feminism and equality,” Jackman says, but points out the world has changed in ‘seismic’ ways even since the play was written. “As time has progressed, with American politics and obviously the rise of Trump, Susie’s words – and RBG’s words, ultimately – speak with such exquisite, laser-sharp importance to our understanding of democracy as a whole society.”
Some lines also land differently in hindsight. “The way that the audience perceives jokes, not that Susie necessarily ever wrote them as a joke, but things that were considered laughable. Actually, we’re in a very dangerous world now with that sort of attitude,” Jackman says. She has revelled in the challenges of a solo show, simple in design but highlighting Mitchell’s “extraordinary transformation”, portraying not just the diminutive RBG but many others as well.
“You have one actor playing not only Ruth Bader Ginsburg from 13 years of age to 87, but also taking on every other role within that 90-minute show, including her husband Marty, all sorts of different Supreme Court judges, and three very iconic American presidents – Clinton, Obama and then Trump.”
Jackman says Ginsburg’s personal achievements will also resonate with many, referring to her own poignant moment, opening the show for the first time shortly after her first baby arrived. “I feel very inspired by the way she believed that motherhood and career are not mutually exclusive, and actually they benefit each other.”
Another came as Ginsburg’s love of opera and the arts is acknowledged on stage at key moments in her remarkable life. “This idea that the arts are important and are central in our lives and in our experience as humans and our expression and identity, I feel like they’re some of the most powerful moments sitting in an auditorium with an audience around us.”
While the play is created and delivered by three Australian women about an American woman, Jackman says there is so much in the play she hopes will connect and stay with people of any background.
“Of course, she’s an American figure, but her words speak globally to us as humans,” she says, recalling one of her favourite quotes from Ginsburg. [She said] ‘I believe in listening to those I disagree with and finding ways to build together, inching us all closer to equality’.”
RBG: Of Many, One
20 May – 7 June, 2026
atc.co.nz
