Rachael Beck vividly remembers her start in the acting world – a stage in Sydney, far away from the sleepy town of Alstonville, in NSW’s Northern Rivers, where she had just started high school.
At just 13, Beck, found herself auditioning for the feline-themed global blockbuster musical Cats, after her father had successfully persuaded the producer and choreographer to give her a go.
“People sing and then they cut, people dance and they cut, and they did that all day and then there were four people left, and I was one of them,” she says about the grueling casting process.
Beck was considered too young for the Australian premiere in Sydney, but went on to land the role of the mischievous Rumpleteazer, when Cats went to Melbourne soon after.
Decades on, and following successful appearances in movies, TV and theatre (and the Australian actor’s rite of passage Home and Away), sharing the screen with Hollywood elites like Hugh Jackman and Ben Mendelsohn, the now 55-year-old has been starring solo in a show about the history of Australian women.
The play, In Their Own Words, follows Beck in a one-woman performance acting out the lives of 16-20 well-known women (depending on how much time each theatre allows her) across the arts, politics, science and the humanities.
“I thought ‘I need some information from some wise women’,” she says.
I hope that it does help other women and inspires other women too.
Rachael Beck
“I approached 17 trailblazing Australian women and interviewed them and whittled down those interviews into monologues and song.
“So Missy Higgins, Ita Buttrose, Marcia Langton, Tanya Plibersek, Louise Sauvage, Ronni Kahn, Sarah Wilson.
“It was wonderful to speak to all of those ladies and even more wonderful to bring their stories and their inspiration, and trials and tribulations to audiences.”
The roughly 70-minute cabaret performance premiered in January 2025 at the Sydney Festival to rave reviews, albeit in a prototype phase according to Beck.
So the script was tweaked for its 2026 reboot earlier this year in Melbourne.
“They (the audience) wanted a little more of Rachel’s voice in the piece,” says Miranda Middleton, the show’s director, who redrafted the script.
“We put in some more of Rachel’s life experiences and allowed her life story to be a little more of a conduit between the women’s experiences, and feedback about that choice was really positive as well.”
‘In Their Own Words’ director Miranda Middleton. Photo: Supplied
As a single mum raising two teenage girls, Beck understands all too well the everyday struggles of balancing her career and the emotional demands of parenting. She’s hoping that weaving in added tidbits of her own life journey will connect with the audience.
“It was at a time where I’d been bringing up my girls on my own and I hadn’t really been doing the big shows and I think I lost a bit of a sense of myself,” says Beck.
“I hope that it does help other women and inspires other women too.”
It did.
Fellow single mum Iris McGill, a colleague of Beck’s at Sydney Catholic Schools where the actress works as an artist-in-residence, after attending In Their Own Words, says she was elated to see single motherhood represented so accurately.
“As single mothers it kind of challenges expectations of what a woman should be, what the roles are of women in general,” says McGill.
“It doesn’t cap expectation. It doesn’t put a boundary on because you’re a single mother. It shows that you can do it all.”
I think now more than ever, our world is being run and destroyed by men who are behaving like toddlers.
Miranda Middleton
Having known Beck for a number of years now, the education officer and actress have become close.
That didn’t stop her being “starstruck” when she first met Beck.
“Oh my gosh, ‘I remember watching you on TV when I was growing up’,” she recalls were her first words to the actress.
“[But] she was just real. No pretenses, no ego.
“She really wants to make sure that she captures the essence, and she is a careful caretaker and keeper of that story. And it doesn’t get lost in translation.”
Getting lost in translation is something Beck is hoping to avoid. It’s not just women she hopes her show connects with. She wants men to relate to its themes too.
Middleton said right now, more than ever, men need to understand the critical perspectives and experiences that women bring to leadership and society.
“It’s the role of women in society to step up as the wise aunts and to help fix the problems that are being caused by the men in positions of power,” she adds.
“I think now more than ever, our world is being run and destroyed by men who are behaving like toddlers.
“I also think a fierce celebration of our humanity in this age is so important, and live performance. I like to think of theatre as an empathy engine. It’s a way of making people care about other people’s life stories and experiences and walk in their shoes for a moment.”
Amid the rise of controversial male influencers such as Andrew Tate, Nick Fuentes and looksmaxxer Clavicular, Beck hopes to demonstrate the efforts of talented women to men.
She’s already found some cut through, with her uncle telling her he learnt more about women in the show than he had from any other point in his life.
Another man in the audience thanked her backstage and told her he was moved by the performance.
“One man just said to me ‘I’m so glad that you spoke about that because it’s really, really distressing and there’s a lot of grief for men,” she says. “Women talk about that and about stillbirth or miscarriages, [but] it affects men a lot too and women don’t necessarily talk about that.
Beck in her Bondi apartment. Photo: Orlando Sagar
“It was really something that has helped me move into the next chapter of my life.”
Beck’s had many chapters in her career, from starring as Belle in Beauty and the Beast to Maria von Trapp in The Sound of Music, yet, she’s eschewed a Hollywood lifestyle.
She is vocal about the flow of actors flocking overseas to the US rather than trying to build up the Australian screen and theatre industries.
“I’ve been asked many times when I’m doing interviews ‘Why didn’t you go overseas?’” she says. “I don’t feel as though I’ve made it if I’ve done a show overseas.
“I don’t think that any one place is better than another, nor audience, that New York is better than an audience in Sydney or Melbourne or Wangaratta.
“We’re all human, we’re all going through the same experience. I’ve always felt that way so I haven’t really had a pull to go overseas.”
But, she says it’s very much whatever works for each person, adding: “It’s hard being human.”
Rachael Beck will perform In Her Own Words on March 11-12 at the Mandurah Performing Arts Centre and the Koorliny Arts Centre, Kwinana.
Main image of Rachael Beck by Orlando Sagar.
