What was your response to La Boite Theatre Company's production of "Summer of the 17th Doll"?
Is the production (directed by Sean Mee) a powerful one, still relevant to an audience in the 21st century? What are your views?
5.05.2008
Year 11 & 12's Response to The Doll
What was your response to La Boite Theatre Company's production of "Summer of the 17th Doll"?
Is the production (directed by Sean Mee) a powerful one, still relevant to an audience in the 21st century? What are your views?
"Summer of the 17th Doll" - Sue Gough
Here is the review from Sue Gough, The Courier-Mail.
The Doll is to Australian theatre what Chekhov's The Three Sisters is to Russian theatre: An iconic play that we love to revisit. Both plays share a poignant look at the relentless flow of time and the way it overtakes those who would have it stand still. Ray Lawler wrote Summer of the Seventeenth Doll more than 50 years ago but his characters and the story remain vibrantly alive. When gun cane-cutters, Barney (Scott Witt) and Roo (Peter Marshall), fly down to Melbourne from north Queensland for the lay-off season, time has already eroded the idyll everyone had planned.
Barney's girl, Nancy, has gone off and married, and Roo's faithful sheila, Olive (Caroline Kennison), has tried to find him a replacement in the reluctant Pearl (Laura Keneally). Innocent young Bubba (Candice Storey) cannot see beyond the glamour of the men's swagger, while Olive's mother, Emma (Kaye Stevenson) is the only realist among them. What really undermines this seventeenth reunion is the toll the years have taken on these two alpha males.Roo's stamina has been put to the test by Johnny (Jonathan Brand), a younger, stronger cutter, and Barney's prowess in the cot is more memory than reality. As their macho grip crumbles, they wear truculence like armour not to protect themselves from outside threats but to keep their emotions in. While the men start to internally haemorrhage, the kewpie dolls Roo has brought Olive begin to lose their infantile appeal.
The Doll was last seen at La Boite's old venue in Hale St. Now directed by Sean Mee at the Roundhouse, it has lost none of its allure but it's a sad fact that the Roundhouse acoustics remain problematic in spite of efforts to improve them. Hearing the actors is a hit-and-miss affair and, combined with clunky moments in this production erratic pace and the odd hiatus opening night was not all it could have been. But there are some beautiful performances to relish. Scott Witt and Peter Marshall are authentically threatened blokes as Barney and Roo, Caroline Kennison's Olive is the best interpretation I've seen and Kaye Stevenson's Emma is a gem. And designer Greg Clarke's authentic 1950s' set is made mythical with an overhead magic lantern on which the play's symbols flicker. It is a clever way of anchoring the production and never more compelling than when we see a blow-up of the vacant, blurred eyes of that kewpie doll.
My guess is that this production will settle down into a you-beaut night of entertainment.
The Doll is to Australian theatre what Chekhov's The Three Sisters is to Russian theatre: An iconic play that we love to revisit. Both plays share a poignant look at the relentless flow of time and the way it overtakes those who would have it stand still. Ray Lawler wrote Summer of the Seventeenth Doll more than 50 years ago but his characters and the story remain vibrantly alive. When gun cane-cutters, Barney (Scott Witt) and Roo (Peter Marshall), fly down to Melbourne from north Queensland for the lay-off season, time has already eroded the idyll everyone had planned.
Barney's girl, Nancy, has gone off and married, and Roo's faithful sheila, Olive (Caroline Kennison), has tried to find him a replacement in the reluctant Pearl (Laura Keneally). Innocent young Bubba (Candice Storey) cannot see beyond the glamour of the men's swagger, while Olive's mother, Emma (Kaye Stevenson) is the only realist among them. What really undermines this seventeenth reunion is the toll the years have taken on these two alpha males.Roo's stamina has been put to the test by Johnny (Jonathan Brand), a younger, stronger cutter, and Barney's prowess in the cot is more memory than reality. As their macho grip crumbles, they wear truculence like armour not to protect themselves from outside threats but to keep their emotions in. While the men start to internally haemorrhage, the kewpie dolls Roo has brought Olive begin to lose their infantile appeal.
The Doll was last seen at La Boite's old venue in Hale St. Now directed by Sean Mee at the Roundhouse, it has lost none of its allure but it's a sad fact that the Roundhouse acoustics remain problematic in spite of efforts to improve them. Hearing the actors is a hit-and-miss affair and, combined with clunky moments in this production erratic pace and the odd hiatus opening night was not all it could have been. But there are some beautiful performances to relish. Scott Witt and Peter Marshall are authentically threatened blokes as Barney and Roo, Caroline Kennison's Olive is the best interpretation I've seen and Kaye Stevenson's Emma is a gem. And designer Greg Clarke's authentic 1950s' set is made mythical with an overhead magic lantern on which the play's symbols flicker. It is a clever way of anchoring the production and never more compelling than when we see a blow-up of the vacant, blurred eyes of that kewpie doll.
My guess is that this production will settle down into a you-beaut night of entertainment.
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