$23.99
Available here as a single edition.
Also published in The Doll Trilogy.
Summer of the Seventeenth Doll is an Australian play first performed in 1955 and then first published in 1957. The play is set in an old house in Carlton, Melbourne, in early December of 1953. Lawler's revised script (2012) of his (and Australia's) most famous play, explores the long term relationship between two larrikin Queensland cane cutters - Roo and Barney - and the women they visit every year in the off season - Olive, Bubba and Pearl. In this final Summer all awaken to middle-age and realise that things have or must change.
The impact of The Doll cannot be over-stated. Its success both here and abroad was quickly recognised as a defining moment in Australian theatre history.
Read Alana Valentine's response to Summer of the Seventeenth Doll in An Ever-Changing Idiom, a free essay from Currency Press.
[[PDF? &filename=`2584_CP_Summer-of-the-Seventeenth-Doll-STATE_THEATRE_SA_EDUCATION_RESOURCE.pdf` ]]
You can preview the full online text with a Membership
Female | 30s | under 3 minutes
Starts on page 0
EXTRACT: [with a slight shudder] It's different all right. Compared to all the marriages I know, what I got is...[groping for depth of expression] is five months of heaven every year. And it's the same for them. Seven months they spend up there killin' themselves in the cane season, and then they come down here to live a little. That's what the lay-off is. Not just playing around and spending a lot of money, but a time for livin'. You think I haven't sized that up against what other women have? I laugh at them every time they try to tell me. Even waiting for Roo to come back is more exciting than anything they've got (Act 1, Scene 1).
Adult themesMale | 40s | under 3 minutes
Starts on page 0
EXTRACT: Well, first set off, Roo, the silly cow, strains his back - There's no need to throw a fit, nothin' serious, nearly better. But it slowed him down all through the season, see. Roo's a pretty hard man, y'know, on the job. Got no use for anyone can't pull their weight; and bein' able to pick and choose almost, 'coz everyone knows he's one of the best gangers there is, gen'rally he gets a champion bunch together. But, he's gotta be hard doin' it sometimes. This year he got the boys to turn off Tony Moreno. (Act 1, Scene 1)