Ray Lawler’s 1955 play SUMMER OF THE SEVENTEENTH DOLL is a great, classic Australian play. The thing with SUMMER is that it is also an achingly sad play! This is a play about that unfortunate life truth that nothing lasts forever, that as Shakespeare put it, ‘youth is a stuff that won’t endure’, that there’s a time when letting the good times roll comes to an end.

For 16 years, sugar cane-cutters Barney (Dan Wylie) and Roo (Steve Le Marquand) have slaved their guts out up north over the summer months, made heaps of money, and then gone down south, during the lay-off, to Carlton in Melbourne to live it up with their girlfriends, Olive (Susie Porter) and Nancy. The play begins with Olive preparing for the boy’s arrival for their 17th year.

A lot has happened during the last year. Major things…The boys didn’t have such a great year up north, and Roo fell into strife and has come to Carlton virtually broke. Nancy, Barney’s squeeze, has gone and married another fella. Olive has managed to persuade Pearl (Helen Thomson), her fellow barmaid at the local pub, to come and stay for a few days and check out Barney, but Pearl, a snooty, modest, stand-offish, very conservative woman is a very different person to Nancy. All in all, there’s just more than a feeling that the Barney and Roo’s 17th summer with the girls may not prove to be such a great time.

Lawler’s play, the playwright himself is now 90 years old and was there on opening night, turns on how all the main characters, with the exception of Pearl, are in love with everything about the layoff season and the boys being in town. Even the next door neighbour Bubba (Yael Stone), now a young woman, grew up with Barney and Roo being around and being joyful over the summer months. As the play progresses, more and more signs come up to indicate that the magic years may be coming to end, and it even breaks Bubba’s heart.

As Olive, Susie Porter is my star of the night. Her performance is one of great emotional intensity and authenticity. All the cast are terrific but Susie is just extraordinary. Her scene with Steve Le Marquand as Roo, when so many tables are all at the same time turned, is stunning.

Neil Armfield, one of Australia’s master directors, renders a striking production. It’s one of the best three hours of theatre one will ever experience! His creative team including set designer Ralph Myers and costume designer Dale Ferguson combine to take us back to a much earlier but very revealing time in our history.

Highly recommended, Neil Armfield’s production of Ray Lawler’s SUMMER OF THE SEVENTEENTH DOLL, opened at Belvoir Street theatre, 25 Belvoir Street, Surry Hills, on the 28th September and runs until November 13, 2011.

© David Kary
10th October, 2011

Tags: SUMMER OF THE SEVENTEENTH DOLL, Belvoir Street theatre, 1950’s Australian classic, Ray Lawler, Neil Armfield, Dan Wylie, Steve Le Marquand, Susie Porter, Helen Thomsen, Yael Stone, Ralph Myers, Dale Ferguson, Heidren Lohr, Carlton Victoria