Staging a Revolution

Womens liberation, consciousness raising and collective processes. From the front line of feminism in Australian theatre, a reminder of how much we owe these remarkable women. Wendy HarmerIn January 1972, five women took to the stage of Carltons Pram Factory to preview their womens play Betty Can Jump. Claire Dobbin, Helen Garner, Evelyn Krape, Jude Kuring and Yvonne Marini mocked the ocker character beloved by Pram Factory playwrights, and performed monologues about men, sex, and how they felt as a woman. Directed by Kerry Dwyer and produced by the Carlton Womens Liberation group, the plays frank revelations stunned audiences and shocked the Pram Factory world.Set against a backdrop of moratorium marches, inner-city cafes and share houses, and the rising tide of sexual liberation and countercultural movements, Kath Kenny uses interviews and archival material to tell the story of Betty Can Jump. On the 50th anniversary of this ground-breaking play, she considers its ongoing impact on Australian culture, and asks why the great cultural renaissance of womens liberation has been largely forgotten. She sets out her stake in this story, as a theatre reviewer today and as a child born into the revolutionary early 1970s. And she asks why feminism keeps getting stuck in mother-daughter battles, rethinking her own experience as a young feminist who clashed with Garner over the publication of The First Stone.What a riveting, energising read. Kennys meticulous research and extensive interviews with a whos who of Australian cultural life from the 1960s and 70s recreates so vividly the heady, hopeful, and often fraught times of Melbournes Pram Factory and the APG. Front row, backstage, on stage we discover how much we didnt know about the fight for womens rights, the politics of revolutionary theatre and the ongoing significance of all the seemingly age-old battles for autonomy and self-representation. Staging a Revolution is a stunning and stunningly important book. Bernadette Brennan