Summer of the Seventeenth Doll

Overview

"The text of this edition of the play differs somewhat from the text on the school curriculum," declares the program for Belvoir's Summer of the Seventeenth Doll. Whether it's because of this or because so much is obscured by that first reading through the fog of school-age naivete, but watching this production of the Ray Lawler-penned Australian classic, one thing suddenly becomes clear: Seventeenth Doll is about sex.

Lots of sex, plus relationships, growing up, blindness to change, and the fantasies we sustain to make our lives liveable. Basically, although we may relegate the play to a time of outdated and cringe-inducing Australian parochialism, the characters and story of Seventeenth Doll are strikingly, achingly contemporary.

It's 1953, the 17th summer seasonal sugar cane cutters Roo (Steve Le Marquand) and Barney (Dan Wyllie) will be returning from Queensland to bunk in Olive's Carlton home for the lay-off. Olive (Susie Porter) calls it her "five months of heaven every year". Onlookers would say it wasn't "a decent way of living". Each year they party and piss their savings away, and although the fourth member of their merry band, Nancy, has recently gone off, married and left them, Olive has recruited widower Pearl (Helen Thompson) to take her place and is determined that this summer should be no different.

Summer of the Seventeenth Doll is an exceptionally well-written play. As well as all the randy-ness (always gripping and relatable), the tension created by the missing Nancy hangs heavy in the air and provides a graceful catalyst for the events that unfold. Open up the script and the language is dense as Old English, only furnished with an expansive ockerism. Yes, it features at least one boorish Aussie larrikin, but he's deconstructed, long before we made a habit out of doing that sort of thing. It's worth our being reminded of why this story is a part of the Australian literary canon.

Although Seventeenth Doll will get its due adaptations one day (ooh, with boom-time miners? Touring indie rockers?), you can't beat seeing it like this, with its full richness and realism brought out by director Neil Armfield. There's an intricately decorated home interior set by Belvoir artistic director Ralph Myers, a covetable wardrobe of '50s wiggle dresses and pussy-bow blouses, and a bewitching deployment of that most underutilised sense, smell.

The cast deliver lines that could have been obscured by a nearly dead language with clarity and feeling, and the performances are stellar, particularly Porter's super-sympathetic portrayal of the sometimes desperate Olive, the uptight and awkward comedy Thompson brings to Pearl, and Robyn Nevin's wonderfully scene-stealing presence as Olive's matter-of-fact mother, Emma.

We like to get swept along in nostalgia for 1950s America. The Australia of that era may be dowdier, but this production says it's time we gave it a fair go.