To spot La Mama Theatre, look for a modest, two-story red-brick building set back from the street with wooden stairs leading up the outside, painted signs announcing upcoming shows, and a touch of greenery crawling around its entrance.
As you stand here, just outside La Mama Theatre, take a deep breath and let the spirit of creativity fill your lungs-seriously, you might just inhale some lingering lines from last night’s experimental play. Picture this place back in 1967: a lively, scruffy corner of Carlton, alive with the clip-clop of students’ boots and the mingling aromas of espresso and hope. Into this scene walked Betty Burstall, fresh from New York, where she and her filmmaker husband Tim discovered the “off-off-Broadway” world-a place where you could fork over fifty cents for a cup of coffee and end up watching a play that was either brilliant, bonkers, or both.
Betty looked around this very street and thought: “Why can’t Melbourne have a home for new, local, daring drama-where the hottest ticket is just showing up?” And so, inside this two-story brick printing works-a sturdy old shell built in 1883-you would have found actors, writers and dreamers crammed together under the soft glow of makeshift stage lights, with scripts clutched nervously in their hands and laughter echoing out onto Faraday Street.
This “not-for-profit” space was a radical idea. Instead of high ticket prices and tuxedoed critics, Betty created a rent-free venue where the audience could toss a few coins into a hat if they loved what they saw, and every performer had a fair shot-no matter who they were or where they came from. Jack Hibberd’s very first play premiered here, and soon, Australian theatre was being born every week, twenty-five new plays in the first two years alone! Can you imagine the nerves behind those doors as the next up-and-comer waited for their cue?
It wasn’t just playwrights, either. La Mama became a home for poets, composers, filmmakers and underground troupes. The air inside would shimmer with the excitement (and occasionally, confusion) of something wildly new. If you’d popped in one evening, you could have found underground performance groups like Tribe-who later jammed with Spectrum-or seen the house troupe, the La Mama Group, evolve into the legendary Australian Performing Group. Bet you didn’t know future stars like Cate Blanchett, David Williamson, or Julia Zemiro once tested their wings here, their voices bouncing off the old brick walls before rocketing across the globe.
The heart of La Mama always beat for the artists, offering upfront funding, rehearsal space, and an 80% share of the box office-so the only real risk was holding back your imagination. Even today, despite everything the theatre’s faced, that spirit stays strong. In 2018, a fire tore through the building, sending smoke and memories swirling up into the sky. It could have been the final curtain, but thanks to fierce determination and the love of Melbourne’s artistic community, La Mama rose again, restored and ready, with its theatre space unchanged-right down to the old trapdoor and the original fireplace.
So, whether you’re here for a new play, a whispered poem, or just to soak up the bohemian air, know you’re standing on storied ground. The next time you see a show, remember: you’re taking part in a little bit of theatrical rebellion that’s lasted more than fifty years-or, as Betty would’ve put it, helping keep Australian theatre “immediate, exciting, and delightfully unpredictable.”
