Our Group is currently having a wonderful time reading an all time classic Australian play Summer of the Seventeenth Doll by Ray Lawler.
At the risk of under-estimating the play, it is about growing up and growing old and failing to grow up. Set in the ‘50s, it is a crucial period in the development of the Australian identity. It was a time of post-war reconstruction and immigration, of materialism, a wool boom, of suburban comfort and conservatism. It was also a time new skills were needed to administer our new found prosperity. Industry began to answer the call of art, literature, music and drama; and among others Ray Lawler emerged.
The play, set in the Melbourne suburb of Carlton, details the events in the lives of six central characters in the summer of 1953. The structure of the play is such that the nature of these characters and their situation and history is not revealed immediately, but rather gradually established as the story unfolds. By the end, the story and all its facets have been indirectly explained.
The summer that the story spans marks the 17th year of an annual tradition in the lives of the characters, wherein two masculine sugarcane cutters, Barney and Roo, travel south to Melbourne for five months of frivolity and celebration with two city women, Olive and Nancy (Roo bringing with him as a gift for Olive a kewpie doll hence the name). One of the women, Nancy, had apparently married some months ago. In her place Olive has invited Pearl Cunningham to partake in the tradition. The other women present in the play are "Bubba" Ryan, a 22-year-old girl who has been coveting Olive and Nancy's lifestyle from her neighbouring house almost all her life, and Emma Leech, Olive's cynical, irritable, but wise mother.
As the play progresses, it becomes obvious that, for many collective reasons, this summer is different from others; it is full of tensions, strains to recreate lost youth, and from what is said of previous years, not a fraction of the fun that others have been. Steadily things become worse; Roo is revealed to be broke and is forced to take a job in a paint factory. He is disillusioned with his age and weaknesses, while relations between Barney and him are in doubt, due to a recent question of loyalty. The situation is agitated in part by Pearl's uptight indignation and refusal to accept the lifestyle she is being presented with as "proper" or "decent".
Our group will read the final sections of the play at our next meeting so all readers will have to wait until the next Bulletin to discover the climactic outcome.
Members of our group are enjoying the various characters they play and some really fit into the characters they read. It is a fun play read by a fun group.
At the risk of under-estimating the play, it is about growing up and growing old and failing to grow up. Set in the ‘50s, it is a crucial period in the development of the Australian identity. It was a time of post-war reconstruction and immigration, of materialism, a wool boom, of suburban comfort and conservatism. It was also a time new skills were needed to administer our new found prosperity. Industry began to answer the call of art, literature, music and drama; and among others Ray Lawler emerged.
The play, set in the Melbourne suburb of Carlton, details the events in the lives of six central characters in the summer of 1953. The structure of the play is such that the nature of these characters and their situation and history is not revealed immediately, but rather gradually established as the story unfolds. By the end, the story and all its facets have been indirectly explained.
The summer that the story spans marks the 17th year of an annual tradition in the lives of the characters, wherein two masculine sugarcane cutters, Barney and Roo, travel south to Melbourne for five months of frivolity and celebration with two city women, Olive and Nancy (Roo bringing with him as a gift for Olive a kewpie doll hence the name). One of the women, Nancy, had apparently married some months ago. In her place Olive has invited Pearl Cunningham to partake in the tradition. The other women present in the play are "Bubba" Ryan, a 22-year-old girl who has been coveting Olive and Nancy's lifestyle from her neighbouring house almost all her life, and Emma Leech, Olive's cynical, irritable, but wise mother.
As the play progresses, it becomes obvious that, for many collective reasons, this summer is different from others; it is full of tensions, strains to recreate lost youth, and from what is said of previous years, not a fraction of the fun that others have been. Steadily things become worse; Roo is revealed to be broke and is forced to take a job in a paint factory. He is disillusioned with his age and weaknesses, while relations between Barney and him are in doubt, due to a recent question of loyalty. The situation is agitated in part by Pearl's uptight indignation and refusal to accept the lifestyle she is being presented with as "proper" or "decent".
Our group will read the final sections of the play at our next meeting so all readers will have to wait until the next Bulletin to discover the climactic outcome.
Members of our group are enjoying the various characters they play and some really fit into the characters they read. It is a fun play read by a fun group.
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