The Doll Trilogy is coming to play

WHILE most Australians have at least heard of Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, the first two plays in Ray Lawler’s trilogy, Kid Stakes and Other Times, are far less familiar and even more rarely performed.

Together, they form The Doll Trilogy that traces 17 summers in the lives of a group of working class Melburnians.

More than 40 years after the trilogy was last staged in its entirety, it arrives at Her Majesty’s Theatre Ballarat, offering regional audiences a rare chance to see Lawler’s full vision unfold.

When Summer of the Seventeenth Doll premiered in 1955 at Melbourne’s Union Theatre Repertory Company (now Melbourne Theatre Company), it marked a decisive shift in Australian theatre, bringing a distinctly local voice, vernacular and sensibility to the stage.

Originally conceived as a standalone work, The Doll went on to tour nationally and internationally, playing London’s West End and Broadway before being adapted for film. Its success cemented Lawler’s reputation, and in the 1970s he returned to the world of the play, expanding it backwards in time with the prequels Kid Stakes and Other Times.

Together, the three plays span the years 1937, 1945 and 1953, unfolding within the same Victorian era boarding house in Carlton.

Melbourne’s Red Stitch Theatre, led by Artistic Director Ella Caldwell, brings the trilogy beyond its St Kilda base to Ballarat.

“There’s something about the ambition of Ray’s exquisite plays, being performed by a single ensemble, that just really aligned with Red Stitch, an actors’ ensemble,” Caldwell said.

“Ray Lawler was an actor as well as a playwright, and it’s a perfect fit for a project that really centres the actor’s craft and the transformation that those characters go through over the course of the three decades that the trilogy covers.”

Each play follows a traditional three act structure, requiring the same ensemble of actors to age convincingly across decades, while charting significant social shifts through the characters and their relationships.

Audiences can experience The Doll Trilogy in two ways, choosing to see each play individually across the season or, for the first time in more than 40 years, to binge all three plays back to back in a single day. On Saturday 20 June, the trilogy will be presented as a complete theatrical journey. Visit hermaj.com for tickets.

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