Photo: Supplied.
Two canecutters from Queensland on their annual five-month layoff; two women in Melbourne waiting for them to arrive; the girl next door who’s been entwined in their lives since she was a child, and the crotchety mother of one of the women, who runs a boarding house. A seventeen-year tradition.
But this year, some things are different. One woman has married, and her replacement doesn’t have the same free-wheeling approach to life. The girl next door has grown into a young woman, and there’s another player down from the cane fields, a young fellow who’s making his mark. Two elements are little changed: the crotchety landlady and the annual gift to her daughter from her suitor – a frilled and spangled kewpie doll on a cane. Other changes have also been at work, subtle and unremarked.
Ray Lawler’s iconic play, Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, was a ground-breaker that helped put Australian theatre on the global map. Theatre Redlands and the Redlands Coast Museum will present Lawler’s masterpiece, directed by Ray Noonan, with Sunday matinee performances supplemented by a brief introductory talk by museum volunteer Judith Ryan, whose grandmother, actress Eve Wynn, knew and worked with Ray Lawler and typed up the original script of the Doll.
Weekend performances will be staged from June 13-22 at Redlands Coast Museum, located at 60 Smith Street, Cleveland. For more information, call 3286 3494 or go to www.redlandmuseum.org.au.
