Jodie Comer is getting rave reviews for her performance in the one-woman Broadway play “Prima Facie,” but her June 7 performance was cut short due to the air quality crisis in New York City.
Eyewitnesses say Comer told the audience she couldn’t breathe because of the air and a stage manager helped her off stage about 10 minutes into the matinée performance. The show resumed from the top shortly after with Comer’s understudy Dani Arlington taking over the role, a spokesperson for the play confirmed to Variety.
New York City is in its second day of terrible air quality as a result of Canadian wildfire smoke blowing in its direction. The city is bathed in a yellow hue, the air is difficult to breathe and smells like a burning campfire.
“Prima Facie” has been nominated for four Tony Awards, including one for Comer’s performance as a lawyer. In Variety’s review, Trish Deitch praised Comer, who “embodies every woman who has ever felt alone in the world.”
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“It’s moving when she sees her mother in the courtroom and feels suddenly supported by someone she previously looked down on,” she wrote. “It’s moving when she thinks of her best friend, an actress with a job on a cruise ship, and feels proud. It’s moving when she sees the one woman working in the court that day—a female cop—put her hand on her mother’s hand to comfort her. That’s the one still moment of the entire production: When Comer says one word—’Sister’—there isn’t a dry eye in the house.”
