SEANNA VAN HELTEN reviews LA BOITE THEATRE COMPANY’s production of iconic Australian play THE SUMMER OF THE SEVENTEENTH DOLL.

Ray Lawler’s The Summer Of The Seventeenth Doll premiered in 1955. Since then the play has taken its place in the small but selective Australian theatrical canon, hailed by theatre historians as one of the most significant of all Australian dramas. It was one of the first ‘naturalistic’ theatre productions in this country to attempt to convey Australian life, and the story has an enduring rapport with audiences. Little wonder that La Boite Theatre Company should choose to revive ‘The Doll’ in this new production, directed at the Roundhouse Theatre by Sean Mee.  

Roo (Peter Marshall) and Barney (Scott Witt) are cane-cutters who spend seven months of the year working in north Queensland. In their lay-off period they head down to Melbourne, spending the hot, carefree summers living it up with a pair of keen barmaids, Olive and Nancy. But this summer – the seventeenth in the series of annual migrations – the dynamic has changed. Although Olive (Caroline Kennison) eagerly awaits her beloved Roo’s return, Nancy has given up on her part-time paramour Barney and settled down with a bookseller. So Olive invites widow Pearl (Laura Keneally) to stay with her in her mother’s house whilst the boys are in town, keen for Barney and Pearl to hit if off, and for the romance of the quartet’s ‘lay-off’ seasons to continue.

They soon realise however that they cannot recreate the magic of previous years. For Pearl, Olive’s excitement about the boys’ visit seems to have been nothing but overblown hype. Barney is sore about Nancy’s new marriage, and Roo sulks over his wounded pride following a disagreement up north with a fitter, younger cane-cutter. Olive tries desperately to protect her idealised traditions, and it soon becomes too much for all of them to bear.

One of the most significant features of Lawler’s play in the time of its debut was its accurate ear for the Aussie accent, and the way it celebrates the nuances of a somewhat parochial dialect. The characters’ language is broad and informal, but sophisticated with its subtle irony and colourful imagery. Appreciative audiences will attest to this text having withstood the proverbial test of time since – apart from the odd ‘Golly!’ or two – the language seems uncannily in tune with a contemporary sensibility.

As the pair of aging cane-cutters, Marshall and Witt tease out the aches and insecurities of two men who have spent too long lost in the haze of their youth. They are offset physically, but are similar in their pride and competitiveness, qualities that eventually come to an aggressive head. Similarly Keneally’s brittle, uppity Pearl contrasts with Kennison’s brash Olive, and yet it is Olive who is so crushed by the weight of her own ideals and expectations.

The most impressive performances, I felt, came from the sideline characters, those peripheral witnesses to the central quartet: Olive’s long-suffering mother, Emma (Kaye Stephenson), the younger cane-cutter that riles Roo (an appearance from Jonathan Brand) and sweet girl-next-door Bubba (Candice Storey). With these characters the play fleshes out three distinct generations, illustrating the particular wisdoms that accompany their different stages of life. And, with hopeful twenty-somethings and perceptive old Emma on either side, Olive, Pearl, Roo and Barney appear all the more tragic for trying to recreate an old sense of joy and fulfilment, without accepting that its time has passed.

For me, this is The Doll’s quintessence: not so much its authentic ‘Australianness’ but, rather, Lawler’s capturing of that very human need to cling on to those feelings of happiness, and knowing how fleetingly they last.

SUMMER OF THE SEVENTEENTH DOLL plays at the Roundhouse Theatre, Kelvin Grove until May 24. For tickets phone 3007 8600 or visit www.laboite.com.au

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