Reg Livermore’s 1975 one-man show, Betty Blokk-Buster Follies, upended Australia’s theatre establishment - and held a mirror up to a changing world.
Few productions have shaken up the story of Australian theatre quite like this one. When the raunchy cabaret, the handiwork of Livermore, a then-fledgling performer who’d previously starred in The Rocky Horror Show, premiered at the Balmain Bijou in 1975 it played to sell-out audiences over its eight-month season before touring around the country.
Despite animosity from the media, the one-man show - which starred Livermore as Betty Blokk-Buster, a German maid who headed up a troupe of down-and-out characters such as the Football Ballerina and Vaseline Amyl Nitrate - connected powerfully with Australians, reflecting and challenging their social mores.
Ahead of Betty Blokk-Buster Reimagined, a new production that will premiere at the Sydney Festival in 2020, we speak with Livermore and the show’s star Josh Quong Tart about the significance of Betty Blokk-Buster - and what the show means now.
Cabaret, a form with roots in 19th-century France, draws on bawdy humour and marginalised characters to hold up a mirror to middle-class audiences. Why do you think it is subversive?
Reg Livermore: I never considered what I was doing as cabaret as such. I was actor-driven and the predicaments of my characters were important to me. They weren’t funny predicaments, but I was able to find the dark humour in them. In 1975, [Australians] hadn’t found the means to express themselves. People would get on the phone just so there was someone on the other end! People said to me, you changed my life. I don’t know if I did that! But you don’t know what’s going on in the dark, how people are receiving the information they are being given. [Betty Blokk-Buster] touched people in so many ways.
Josh Quong Tart: I’m completely into cabaret as a form because it is about music and characters. It holds a mirror up to the world. Betty Blokk-Buster came hot off the heels of The Rocky Horror Show and people had never seen that raunchiness, that sense of telling it how it is. The audience didn’t just want Betty. They needed her.
It’s been 45 years since the original Betty Blokk-Buster. Since then, Australia has become more progressive. But in some ways, society is more polarised than ever. What makes the production relevant now?
Livermore: That’s up to the people who are creating it! They are much younger than I am and their experience in the theatre [represents] such a different moment. There might be a nod to some of the stuff I wrote - but who knows where they will take it?
Quong Tart: It was a different time back then. It was a time when the homosexual community were beaten up in the streets! Mary Rachel Brown, who’s one of the writers, who’s remarkable, put it well. She says that Betty has been zipped up in a vacuum-sealed bag for 45 years. She’s now been let out and going: “What the hell is going on?” Indigenous people still aren’t in the constitution! There’s the drought! And then, there are all the international issues. The world has been sideswiped in every direction.
We are using some characters and songs from the original [because] Reg created a show for everybody. We are in a very different world but our primary goal is to entertain.
What are the highlights of playing Betty? Josh, how will you interpret a character that is such a major part of Reg’s legacy?
Livermore: When I was asked by Eric Dare to do the show, I decided that it was a sideshow alley of life’s battlers - they were survivors and they were proud. And because it was like a circus, I needed a ring mistress. I think Betty was a one-time showgirl in the Weimar Republic. She would give a Nazi salute and there was a big cricket scoreboard that rolled on behind her with instructions for the audience. But she was there to make people happy. [Josh] is an all-round great performer who is prone to moments of wildness, which will stand him in good stead.
Quong Tart: Betty sets up the show, she has a very important function and that is to get the audience to be an active participant in the show, she gives, no, she ‘demands’ participation. It sets up a hell of a night out.
Reg is a legend. Reg told me that the spirit of the show is important, that is what we are trying to capture with this ‘reimagined version’ so I want to do something that will make him proud.
How do you hope audiences will respond to Betty Blokk-Buster in 2020?
Livermore: There are people for whom the memory of it is quite precious, so I hope that it is a jolly good show and that people get a buzz out of it.
Quong Tart: I’m so excited to be getting in that room with the full band. When the costumes, the lighting, the music and the material come together, it will be incredible.
Betty Blokk-Buster Reimagined has its world premiere at the Magic Mirrors Spiegeltent in Hyde Park from 7-26 January 2020
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