Douglas Kennedy
April 13, 2008 12:00am
THE Melbourne Theatre Company was on the road with a touring production of Twelfth Night in 1955 and among the players were two men who would revolutionise Australian theatre.
One was a brash 21-year-old, Barry Humphries, who was busy creating a new character for a Christmas revue to be staged at Melbourne University that year, Edna Everage.
The other was the actor, director and struggling playwright Ray Lawler.
Lawler's new work, The Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, would premiere at the university's Union Theatre and put on stage for the first time a distinctive Australian theatrical voice.
Lawler, who is turning 87 as his groundbreaking play is about to have a new season at La Boite in Brisbane, with Sean Mee directing, laughs as he recalls the era: "We didn't have any idea of the importance of what we were doing then or its lasting effect.
"As I remember, we were just pleased to have some outlet for our work.
"But yes, it's true, you could say that the Doll and Edna Everage came along in tandem."
Lawler, who was one of eight children born into a working-class Footscray family in 1921 and who left school at 13 to become a factory worker, had written 10 plays by the time the Doll won a major competition in 1954.
"Most of my works had been produced in the amateur theatre to that date and so I was over the moon when the Doll won," Lawler recalls.
"But in those days it was no guarantee that your work would be given a professional staging."
Luckily, the Doll bucked the trend and in 1955, when the Elizabethan Theatre Trust in Sydney put on the brave new work, about two canecutters travelling south to be with their barmaid girlfriends in the off-season, it was a sensation.
Roo, Barney (played by Lawler), Olive and Nancy had a longstanding "arrangement" which was symbolised by the kewpie dolls the lads brought home each year until the 17th off-season.
"The play had a sort of steamy realism, which I still think comes through today, although times have changed so much," Lawler says.
"When we went to England with the all-Australian production, we were constantly asked how it had got past the censors."
The English season, which had the sponsorship and support of Britain's most distinguished actor, Laurence Olivier, and his then wife, Vivien Leigh – of Gone With the Wind fame – was a triumph.
"Olivier was wonderful and Vivien even came along to support the regional shows and cried when it opened in the West End," Lawler says. "It seems every expat in London was there and almost disrupted the night by roaring with laughter and cheering all the time.
"I remember the playwright Terrence Rattigan (Separate Tables) asking why the name Young and Jackson had them in fits. He was none the wiser when I explained it was a pub in Melbourne. It was just that audiences weren't used to hearing about things Australian."
The Doll struggled in New York because of the lingo but later had successful runs there and around the world.
"It's more than a play to me, it's an important part of my life," Lawler says.
The Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, with a cast including Jonathan Brand, Laura Keneally, Caroline Kennison, Peter Marshall, Kaye Stevenson, Candice Storey and Scott Witt, plays at La Boite from April 30-May 24.
4.27.2008
Summer of the 17th Doll
Summer Of The Seventeenth Doll opened in Melbourne at the Russell Street Theatre in 1955. Within a year, according to Katharine Brisbane, it had become a household word, and by the time it reached a London stage in 1957, it was being hailed as the long-awaited proof that Australian drama had come of age. Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald in 1956, Lindsay Browne pro claimed that:"This fine play, untransplantably Australian in all its accents, gave Australian theatregoers the chance to feel as American audiences must have felt when O'Neill first began to assert American vitality and independence in drama, or the Irish must have felt when Synge gave them The Playboy Of The Western World."
The La Boite Production
Director: Sean Mee
Designer: Greg Clarke
Lighting Designer: Andrew Meadows
Sound Designer: Tyrone Noonan
Featuring Jonathan Brand, Laura Keneally, Caroline Kennison, Peter Marshall, Kaye Stevenson, Candice Storey and Scott Witt
La Boite Production Notes Part 1
La Boite Production Notes Part 2
Links to learn more:
Summer of the 17th Doll
Summer of the 17th Doll
Summer of the 17th Doll
All Drama Students - Ideas about Drama
"Drama is a subject for growth."
What are your thoughts on this topic?
Here are some thoughts from the April 2020 Summit
Cate Blanchett said creativity was central to all human endeavour. "By 2020 we want to be celebrating the fact that creativity is central to sustaining and defining the nation," she said.
"CREATIVITY is at the heart of every successful nation. It finds expression in great visual art, wonderful music, fabulous performances, stunning writing, gritty new productions and countless other media. Giving form to our innate human creativity is what defines us to ourselves and the world."
"The arts connect with every other sector of the economy and with each of us individually. We already know that creativity is the spark that drives the best research scientists and the cleverest thinkers in fields well removed from those we may think of as creative — teaching, policy, economics and community development."
"Creativity and the arts are as elemental to that future as they are to the past. They are a link between us all and an expression of our differences."
- Cate Blanchett and Julianne Schultz, co-chairs of the Creative Australia Stream, 2020 Summit.
Some links to learn more:
Creative Australia
2020 Creative Australia
What are your thoughts on this topic?
Here are some thoughts from the April 2020 Summit
Cate Blanchett said creativity was central to all human endeavour. "By 2020 we want to be celebrating the fact that creativity is central to sustaining and defining the nation," she said.
"CREATIVITY is at the heart of every successful nation. It finds expression in great visual art, wonderful music, fabulous performances, stunning writing, gritty new productions and countless other media. Giving form to our innate human creativity is what defines us to ourselves and the world."
"The arts connect with every other sector of the economy and with each of us individually. We already know that creativity is the spark that drives the best research scientists and the cleverest thinkers in fields well removed from those we may think of as creative — teaching, policy, economics and community development."
"Creativity and the arts are as elemental to that future as they are to the past. They are a link between us all and an expression of our differences."
- Cate Blanchett and Julianne Schultz, co-chairs of the Creative Australia Stream, 2020 Summit.
Some links to learn more:
Creative Australia
2020 Creative Australia
Year 9 Coral Point Process Drama
"It has been rumoured that 'TIMBERBREAK' PTY LTD is going to mill trees for timber at Coral Point's own COOK FOREST. What comments do you (i.e. your character) have to make about this unannounced development? What implications could timber milling have for the town, the people, the environment etc?"
Years 11/12 - Sub-Con Warrior 2.0
What is your response to the following review of Zen Zen Zo's Sub-Con Warrior 2.0 by Gillian Bramley-Moore from The Courier-Mail? (19/04/08).
Do you agree or disagree with reviewer's comments?
ENTERING the theatre, everyone was asked to put on a mask, wear a "neural demodulator with delicate circuitry" and lie on the floor -- and that was only in the first few minutes. There's more, but it's enough to say that everyone is put on notice.
All spectators of this ambitious sci-fi-cum-computer-game-psycho-drama that is riddled with the seductive rhythm of exotic techno speak are active agents in this cyberspecial tease that is laced with a firm twist of evil.
As the audience engage with the war-mongering rantings of the combative warrior crew, the borders between a virtual plane and reality crumble.
Movement supersedes text in the telling of this story promenade, physical theatre style. The talented ensemble of Mercury (Carla Rees), Shockwave (Dave Sleswick), Mantra (Rob Thwaites) and Hunter (Katrina Cornwell) are a close-knit, compelling avatar team decked out in fabulous futuristic fighting gear.
Shockwave's Rasta plaits hang among a forest of electrical wires. The crowd are shunted here and there relentlessly, by black capped security guards, becoming increasingly disoriented as they tramp up and down stairwells or trundle through curtained corridors disguised by lurid lighting. It's confronting, claustrophobic. There's nowhere to hide.
The plot is simple. A group of people immerse themselves in a new computer game but the game engine has assumed human intelligence and with it a capacity for extreme violence.
The "ethical restraints guard" has been overridden and an earnest hacker grapples with how to get the people "zoned out" before they are zapped.
Something is seriously amiss in the mainframe.
The sets are spartan, the most striking a jumble of cardboard boxes that judder in sync with the moves of the psycho nasties they contain. With overtones of the cyberpunk legacy of the Tron, Alien and Bladerunner movies, this theatrical vehicle reveals lovely moments of whimsy and is pitched against a score infused with delicious electronic gloops and crackling. The drama is at its best when the posturing cast demand "activation of the stealth mode" or they involve a simpatico audience enthusiast in covert operations, but it does get bogged down.
Director Simon Wood's confection is often ingenious but that doesn't excuse taking too long to reach an ultimate destination. As one youngster yelled when the words "game not over" are screened after a prolonged spell in virtual catastrophe, "you gotta be kidding". Enough is enough.
By Gillian Bramley-Moore
Image - The Courier-Mail
Do you agree or disagree with reviewer's comments?
ENTERING the theatre, everyone was asked to put on a mask, wear a "neural demodulator with delicate circuitry" and lie on the floor -- and that was only in the first few minutes. There's more, but it's enough to say that everyone is put on notice.
All spectators of this ambitious sci-fi-cum-computer-game-psycho-drama that is riddled with the seductive rhythm of exotic techno speak are active agents in this cyberspecial tease that is laced with a firm twist of evil.
As the audience engage with the war-mongering rantings of the combative warrior crew, the borders between a virtual plane and reality crumble.
Movement supersedes text in the telling of this story promenade, physical theatre style. The talented ensemble of Mercury (Carla Rees), Shockwave (Dave Sleswick), Mantra (Rob Thwaites) and Hunter (Katrina Cornwell) are a close-knit, compelling avatar team decked out in fabulous futuristic fighting gear.
Shockwave's Rasta plaits hang among a forest of electrical wires. The crowd are shunted here and there relentlessly, by black capped security guards, becoming increasingly disoriented as they tramp up and down stairwells or trundle through curtained corridors disguised by lurid lighting. It's confronting, claustrophobic. There's nowhere to hide.
The plot is simple. A group of people immerse themselves in a new computer game but the game engine has assumed human intelligence and with it a capacity for extreme violence.
The "ethical restraints guard" has been overridden and an earnest hacker grapples with how to get the people "zoned out" before they are zapped.
Something is seriously amiss in the mainframe.
The sets are spartan, the most striking a jumble of cardboard boxes that judder in sync with the moves of the psycho nasties they contain. With overtones of the cyberpunk legacy of the Tron, Alien and Bladerunner movies, this theatrical vehicle reveals lovely moments of whimsy and is pitched against a score infused with delicious electronic gloops and crackling. The drama is at its best when the posturing cast demand "activation of the stealth mode" or they involve a simpatico audience enthusiast in covert operations, but it does get bogged down.
Director Simon Wood's confection is often ingenious but that doesn't excuse taking too long to reach an ultimate destination. As one youngster yelled when the words "game not over" are screened after a prolonged spell in virtual catastrophe, "you gotta be kidding". Enough is enough.
By Gillian Bramley-Moore
Image - The Courier-Mail
Welcome to our CCC Drama blog
Hi girls. This is our online space for Drama. I hope that you will interact and make appropriate responses. I look forward to your comments and insights.
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