The wheels of justice begin turning when someone speaks up. When someone says, for instance, me too.

But how can testimony – which so often takes courage, which can come from a scream and feel the opposite of a calm statement – coexist with the cold tongue of the law?

In my mind at least, storm clouds appear over the corner building of the Seymour Centre every time an Outhouse Theatre Co. bill goes up outside. These last few years, this company has sent jet-black bolts of trenchant satire into the venue’s Reginald Theatre, shows that crackle with the moral issues of our time and rip through reductionism; through notions of the world in black and white.

Such is the case with the company’s mounting of Consent by British playwright Nina Raine. Opening in 2017 to sell out at the London National Theatre, it now has a commanding Australian premiere under director Craig Baldwin.

Anna Samson and Jessica Bell in Consent. Photo supplied

As with Outhouse’s Heroes of the Fourth Turning in 2022 (also Baldwin’s), and Ulster American in 2021, Consent is another taut, edgily exhilarating...