Multi-award winning playwright Suzie Miller reflects on creating the national theatre sensation that is RBG: Of Many, One.

As a young female law student I looked up to women judges; they were groundbreakers for me, and they remain so. The more women in powerful legal positions, the more opportunity for the law to be influenced by women’s lived experiences. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, herself, brought all her intelligence and thoughtfulness to her judicial profession; she brought her feminism, her roles as mother, daughter, life-partner; she brought her Jewish background, her childhood of loss and socio-economic repression, she brought her incredibly flexible mind and her sharp senses. She brought herself as a woman completely and without apology. All of which has not only influenced the USA but women’s lives around the world – including women and lawyers in Australia. 

Throughout her life, RBG felt strongly about democracy and the rule of law, and to ensure both of these, she applauded the strict separation of executive and judicial powers. The rule of law, in short, means that no one is above the law – including leaders and politicians. This accountability and transparency must never be taken for granted, and the separation of powers – that the government and the courts must never interfere with or seek to influence each other – is a way of keeping the checks and balances on both the government and judges of the day. This is democracy in action. 

It is ironic that her words have come back to haunt us all – I wrote this play during the pandemic - because her warning against interference between courts and presidents is something that is paramount in today’s world. Democracy is only as strong as its institutions, and in many countries we are seeing those institutions rattled and swaying under pressure. If they collapse so too does democracy. RBG was often blamed for not resigning. This play attempts to show how she did not believe in judges playing party politics, however even she, with her enormous intellect, might never have envisioned how the court would become so partisan, so politicised in her country. 

That she died with some sense of how that was coming about is tragic, especially when she had been on the verge of what she believed was a woman in the White House. Can we blame her for not seeing that dashed when no one else saw it either? Was vanity at play or purity and vision? 

Nevertheless, perhaps her seemingly unrelenting and critiqued belief in the institution of the court might well come back to serve us. The court could perhaps be the one thing that will act to keep in check the extravagances of executive power and wildly undemocratic rulings by today’s politicians. Perhaps at the root of her not resigning was a sense that she must stand against presidents telling courts and judges what to do – and in that regard her stance was about saving democracies. If we take a long view, perhaps it is this arm of democracy, the judiciary, that will ultimately rebalance the system in the longer term – or not. Of course, this play cannot say, instead it explores the deeply human, brilliant mind and service of RBG the woman and the judge. 

With RBG: Of Many, One, I was so warmly supported by the STC in expressing my unique vision for the play, and that has continued right up to this season of the show. I thank them all once again for their brilliance and love.