The Doll Trilogy
A Melbourne theatre review by Alex First
What an experience!
I speak of a searing, at times humorous trilogy covering 16 years and lasting seven hours, in which, on several occasions, the characters eviscerate one another.
And “yes”, I approached it with fear, simply because even for an unashamed theatre enthusiast like me 420 minutes in a small, black box theatre seemed like a huge ask.
I should add that there are breaks within and between each play, which extend the day from midday to just past 11pm.
Fortunately, my trepidation was readily put to rest by a sensational, powerhouse start that had me primed to discover more … as soon as possible. No ifs or buts about it.
The strength is in the writing and the execution, that includes stellar performances from a richly talented cast, which had me emotionally invested.
Ray Lawler’s classic plays are Kid Stakes, Other Times and Summer of the Seventeenth Doll.
The action takes place in the living room of the Melbourne inner city suburb of Carlton between 1937 and 1953.
Kid Stakes sets the tone for the characters’ interactions that follow.
In the Depression era, stern widow Emma (Caroline Lee) runs a small boarding house.
Emma’s daughter Olive (Ngaire Dawn Fair) and Olive’s ebullient friend and border Nancy (Emily Goddard) work as milliners.
During a visit to the aquarium, they meet a couple of cane cutters, best mates
Roo (Ben Prendergast) and Barney (John Leary).
They are down from Queensland, enjoying a five-month layoff.
The four begin seeing each other when, unbeknownst to the hard-nosed Emma, the girls orchestrate getting the boys into her home as boarders.
As a loudmouthed prankster, Barney seems a good match for Nancy, although Emma doesn’t warm to him. Indeed, he has a couple of skeletons in the closet.
Olive is besotted by Roo and he with her, but Emma has other ideas, concerned about the motives of these commitment-phobic, fly-in, fly-out workers.
She would rather see Olive with her daughter’s strait-laced, gentlemanly co-worker Dickie (Khisraw Jones-Shukoor), who sees his future in advertising.
Still, the girls leave their jobs to become barmaids and see more and more of Roo and Barney.
Kid Stakes is a boisterous start to the trilogy.
The tone changes appreciably in Other Times, which moves from the late ‘30s to 1945 … the end of WWII, and significantly darker times for the players.
Roo and Barney have been enlisted men for five years before they were given their discharge papers.
The war has taken its toll on Roo in particular, while Nancy is no longer as invested in Barney and is drinking more.
Her head has been turned by a kind Jewish migrant, Josef (Khisraw Jones-Shukoor), who met her at the bar where she works. Racism has reared its ugly head.
Emma’s next-door neighbour, Bubba (Lucinda Smith), who doesn’t appear in the first play but is referenced frequently, is now 14.
She enjoys spending time with Emma, Olive, Nancy and the boys.
While continuing to live in her home, Emma gives it up as a boarding house and invests in a scheme that promises her riches.
Summer of the Seventeeth Doll moves the narrative to 16 summers after Roo and Barney first met Olive and Nancy.
This will be a time of reckoning.
Nancy is no longer on the scene.
Instead, we are introduced to Nancy’s barmaid friend, Pearl (Emily Goddard), a widowed mother of an 18-year-old daughter.
She doesn’t condone Nancy’s free and easy lifestyle, who has maintained her relationship with Roo all these years.
Pearl is also wary of meeting womaniser Barney, as it turns out, with good reason, even though he initially sweettalks her.
Roo has hit hard times, replaced as a ganger (the foreman in charge of fellow workers on the sugar cane plantation where the boys work).
Barney orchestrates an awkward catch-up in Melbourne between Roo and the young man with whom he fell out and who took his role, Johnnie (Khisraw Jones-Shukoor),
Johnnie also catches the eye of 22-year-old Bubba.
There are dreams and then there is reality, without room for sentimentality, as life gets in the way.
Such is the truth exposed in this award-winning trilogy finale.
For those who may now be aware, the 17 dolls referenced in the title speak to the Kewpie dolls that Roo gifts Olive on each annual, five-monthly visit.
What a mighty effort by the cast, several of whom do so much metaphorical heavy lifting and don’t falter.
The acerbic tongue of Emma is magnificently realised in a no-nonsense showing by Caroline Lee.
Ngaire Dawn Fair brings optimism and enthusiasm to good-natured Olive.
There is an eyes-wide-open pragmatism about Nancy and Pearl, as delightfully captured by Emily Goodard.
Ben Prendergast brings a decent, steadfast quality to Roo, whose heart is in the right place.
John Leary shines as the big-talking, larger-than-life Barney, who has an answer for every misstep he takes.
Khisraw Jones-Shukoor transitions extremely effectively from character to character between the three works.
And Lucinda Smith channels girlish gaiety as Bubba, who is privy some of the highest of highs and the lowest of lows in The Doll Trilogy.
Authenticity is the key to the period dressing by set and costume designers Jacob Batista and Sophie Woodward.
Also noteworthy is the moody lighting design by Rachel Burke and evocative sound design by Daniel Dixon.
With The Doll Trilogy, director Ella Caldwell has masterfully crafted a work of rare quality and excellence.
It serves to highlight that Red Stitch is among Australia’s finest exponents of compelling theatre.
But I warn you that you need to get in mighty quickly to secure your tickets because many shows are already sold out in a season that has been extended to 19th April.
If you can’t or don’t want to see all three shows in one day, you can do so over three separate sittings.
Either way, I would urge you to do so.
For your full range of options, go to https://www.redstitch.net
