Betsy & I | indelabilityarts
Emotional, witty, insightful, super entertaining and utterly charming.
Images from Undercover Artist Festival
Betsy and I is a semi-autobiographical work produced by Undercover Artist Festival and indelabilityarts (Wilbur The Optical Whale, Chameleon) and written by Alexandra Ellen who also stars as the main character, Ivy. Alexandra draws on her own experiences to weave a complex tale of internal conflict, shame, friendship and acceptance. It’s as much a comedy as it is a dramatic and heartfelt look into the life of a young woman coming to terms with her disability and starting to use a mobility aid.
The real show begins when Ivy’s wheelie-walker Betsy comes to life in human form and starts to talk back. It was so clever – Betsy could only be seen and heard by Ivy, which made some interactions with other characters surreal and hilarious to witness. The flamboyant, sassy personification of Ivy’s wheelie-walker breathed vibrant life into the internal struggle that one feels when coming to terms with a disability. Through her relationship with Betsy, we saw Ivy grow and shine. It really was a reforming of her relationship with herself, conveyed through the relationship with this anthropomorphised wheelie-walker, whose infectious charm, vivacity and tenacity made her impossible not to love as a character.
One of the first things I noticed when the show began was that I felt at ease in the space. It was intimate and relaxed. I felt as though I had been welcomed into Ivy’s home for a hot cuppa and a story. This was aided by the fact that, in Ivy, the main character and the narrator are one and the same, so it’s almost as though you’re watching someone’s personal diary entries come to life in front of you. I didn’t know at the time of watching that Alexandra was both the writer and lead actor, but I was not surprised when I learnt this because her acting just felt so authentic throughout. This is someone telling her own story through art, and there is power in that.
I saw Betsy’s personification as a metaphor for seeing mobility aids as helpful friends rather than as hindrances. Betsy also served as an effective vehicle for educating the audience about ableist language and behaviour; as she taught Ivy about these things, some of us learnt too. Having a ‘friend’ in the form of an aid also helps to break through a bit of the isolation one feels when living with a disability in an ableist society. Having to explain your condition to others can be so draining and, even then, it’s very rare that they really listen or are even able to comprehend unless they have similar lived experience. So having that character of Betsy who is such an ally, an advocate and who just understood Ivy and stood up for her made the struggle so much more visual and helped to externalise that internal journey.
Both the writing and the acting were on point. In particular, Sophie Kleinschmidt’s performance as the exuberant, eclectic Betsy was captivating. I felt like she stole the audience’s hearts; I could hear and feel the people around me reacting with warmth and joy to the character, increasingly so after the show’s climactic moment, and I heard a whisper of, “She’s so good!” from behind me.
The other supporting actor Cameron Hurry also did an incredible job playing five different characters, switching fluidly between them and bringing them to life. Among his roles were the selfish ex-husband, the stony-faced security guard and the loving dad. There were some nice tender moments as Ivy and her father connected over tea, and as she connected with her late Nan through the wheelie-walker that had been passed down.
Ivy faces physical barriers but also social and emotional barriers, fears of how others would perceive her and the infuriation of being repeatedly asked, “BuT hAvE yOu tRiEd YoGa?” and told, “YoU’rE aN iNsPiRaTioN!” Betsy and I conveys the exhaustion of just trying to exist in an ableist world but also at times asks, quite comedically, not what you can do for ableism, but what ableism can do for you!
Images from Undercover Artist Festival
Even as the story progressed and tension built towards the climax, I felt cared for as an audience member. What I mean by that is that there is a lot of theatre out there that deals with heavy themes in a way that essentially just dumps it on the viewer, leaving it with them, forcing them to sit in it and carry it out of the theatre with them, but throughout Betsy and I, there was enough comic relief between heavy moments that it didn’t feel too heavy and I was able to connect with the themes without feeling drained.
The set was simple but effective – moving boxes stacked high as a back wall. Nestled among them were various tea pots, tea cups (Ivy LOVES tea) and other miscellaneous household items you’d expect to see when someone is moving house. It was an effective choice for a show about a character in transit, not only moving house but also moving from shame to self-acceptance, unboxing feelings and sharing many a cuppa along the way.
Soft lighting with gentle changes and an ambient soundscape were masterfully used to convey mood, changes in scene, and there was an intermittent voiceover that the main character interacted with, giving an extra dimension to the performance. As the story goes on, it’s to this voiceover that the main character expresses wish after wish, and it’s the evolution of the different wishes that shows us that the character is changing and growing, moving past her shame and fear surrounding being “too broken” or “frail” and towards self-acceptance, love and realising that the problem is not with herself, but rather, with the way the world treats people like herself.
One small thing that made a big difference to me was that the Auslan interpreter interacted with the set and occasionally also with the characters. Something so simple as the interpreter sitting down at the same dining table as the characters helped to integrate her into the play rather than having her stand to the side as if a separate add-on, as is seen in many shows.
This is a show for disabled people to feel seen and others to be educated. It was clear the writer wanted to educate people, and she did so through dynamic and loveable characters that breathe life into big, difficult topics. As far as theatre as a medium for advocacy and activism goes, Betsy and I is doing something really right! I felt moved, I learnt a thing or two, and I was also delighted by the characters and story I came to know along the way.
The show had a nice arc to it from start to finish as Ivy found her voice and the words to describe her experience both to herself and others. In the end, Ivy came to realise that the problem isn’t with her body, but rather, it’s with the barriers imposed by society. She’s not broken and in need of fixing; it’s society that needs educating and changing. It was this point that was really pushed home through Betsy and I. In accepting her disability and befriending Betsy, Ivy discovers her ability to talk about her experience and advocate for herself in her relationships. Language is how we relate ideas to each other, and not having language for an experience can be as good as total isolation in it. Through learning the words for her experience, Ivy was able to reach out to those around her and say, “This is who I am. This life is mine, and it’s not yours to define for me”.
