“It’s used as a vehicle to discuss consent, because the play really does that – it’s not just a play that happens to be about consent.

“The message is [on] the complexity around consent laws and also the importance of the complainant and our justice system, which is also what the inquiry is looking at. [For the audience] it’s not just in terms of the way they deal with these types of cases, but it’s walking away and just having an interest in it in some way,” she said.

Former Victorian Supreme Court judge and part-time ALRC commissioner Marcia Neave first walked the audience through the sexual violence inquiry and how the play would explore similar themes.

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“Like all good art, the play itself … does not propose simple, ideological solutions to the problem of sexual violence. It exposes the complexity, and how a culture can contribute to what we all might have thought,” Neave said.

Neville-Jones said the audience was likely to walk out of the Chapel Off Chapel venue “feeling like they’ve sort of just gone through a bit of a rollercoaster, and particularly with the way it ends”.

While at times the rollercoaster seemed like it veered off track, there were some poignant moments in the play that were felt long after the scene ended. For example, the confronting language used by the barrister and prosecutor to offhandedly talk about the sexual assault case – as if it were a benign water cooler chat – was like a gut punch. In another scene, the defence barrister brags about the methods he used to tear down an “alleged” (as he emphasises often) victim’s story.

In a play about the issue of consent, these scenes stood out the most. They left a lingering fear that the conversations playing out on stage could be very similar to those happening outside of real courtrooms.

For the lawyers in the audience, Neville-Jones said the play would explore their “desensitisation”, particularly in the “extremely confronting” way some of the characters talk about their case.

“I’m not saying lawyers shouldn’t [talk about it], I think it’s just more of an awareness of how we talk about our cases.

“Personally, working in family law, it applies to myself in terms of talking about every area of family law, but particularly in respect of parenting or intervention orders or family violence. That’s not to say I don’t respect my cases and my clients, but there is a desensitisation in the context of talking about these things,” Neville-Jones said.

At times, the issue of consent felt like it got buried under a different story. Although the actors still did wonderfully to bring the two together, there were moments that could have had a much bigger impact on the theme had they played out a little differently.

Still, much like Neave said, the play gave its audience a glimpse into how each person’s individual lives, thoughts and feelings can impact the complexities of sexual assault cases.

Barrister Kylie Weston-Scheuber, who played Gayle, added lawyers would find parts of the play they relate to in ways other audience members would not.

For example, during a performance of one of the scenes with sponsors Doogue + George Defence Lawyers and Parnell’s Barristers, a moment between two characters had people laughing – even though it was not meant to be a funny scene.

“That was because it wasn’t funny, but it was familiar, and they related to that experience. People who are lawyers will find parts of the play where they do relate to and can see themselves in those experiences, and sometimes that will be funny, but sometimes it might … perhaps make them rethink the way they do things,” Weston-Scheuber said.

Having spent two years running the sexual offences unit as a prosecutor in Canberra, Weston-Scheuber said she has a particular interest in the subject matter, in developing laws around consent, and in exploring how justice can be a “damaging process” for victims.

For Weston-Scheuber, stepping into the shoes of a complainant was an interesting way to explore a “different dynamic”.

“My character Gayle is the complainant … and for me, it’s really interesting to have that opportunity to experience things from a different side, having been the person in the position of prosecuting counsel – [but] I like to think I wasn’t like the prosecuting counsel in Consent,” Weston-Scheuber told Lawyers Weekly.

“It’s been really interesting to try and get behind that feeling of being the person in the witness box, as opposed to the person asking the questions, and trying to understand how that feels and how that plays out in the balance of your life as well.”

Consent runs from Thursday, 31 October, to Saturday, 9 November.