Jean Betts


Jean Betts is a London born New Zealand playwright, actor and director.

Background

Jean Betts emigrated with her parents, both founders of Unity Theatre, London, to Christchurch, New Zealand. She obtained a degree at University of Canterbury in English Literature and New Zealand and Pacific History. Betts graduated from Toi Whakaari: the New Zealand Drama School in 1970, the inaugural year when its founder, Nola Millar, was principal. Her classmates were Elizabeth Coulter, Jennifer Ludlam, Denise Maunder, Joanna Miekle, John Otto, William Petley, Darien Takle and Bevan Wilson.

Career

Jean Betts has written many plays including Revenge of the Amazons, Ophelia Thinks Harder, The Collective and The Misandrist. The Collective is dramatisation of the story of Bertolt Brecht's theatre collective based on the principle that the collective are the owners of the work that Brecht took credit for.
For many years Jean Betts worked as an actor and director at Gateway, BATS, Downstage Theatre and Circa Theatre. She was involved with the development of professional theatre in New Zealand including as a foundation member of Playmarket, Circa Theatre and Taki Rua/The Depot Theatre.
In 1979 Jean worked at ESTA as actor/director, and was a founding member of the expatriate group 'The Heartache and Sorrow Company' which presented work in Amsterdam, Germany, Australia, London and at the Edinburgh Festival, where the group received a 'Fringe First' and a Scotsman's Award.
In 1993 she was a founding member of WOPPA which premiered her play Ophelia Thinks Harder. and established The Women's Play Press with Lorae Parry, Cathy Downes, Vivienne Plumb and Fiona Samuel. Her play Ophelia Thinks Harder has subsequently been translated in German and Italian and produced over 160 times, it is a feminist response to Shakespeare’s play Hamlet. A reviewer from a presentation at the Fortune Theatre, Dunedin in 2019 states:
It is sheer delight to see again what has become a true New Zealand classic, and realise how brilliantly Ophelia Thinks Harder has stood the test of time. Combining love of poetical language with impudent humour, Jean Betts plunders many of Shakespeare’s plays as well as Hamlet – from The Taming of the Shrew to Othello and Much Ado – to create a hilariously topsy-turvy world.
In 2005 she set up a small NZ play publishing project, The Play Press.

Awards

She has been a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize twice; and in 2015 received the Playmarket Award of $20,000 for her contribution to New Zealand Theatre.

Plays