Cirrus@Austlit

'The most famous Australian play and one of the best loved, Summer of the Seventeenth Doll is a tragicomic story of Roo and Barney, two Queensland sugar-cane cutters who go to Melbourne every year during the 'layoff' to live it up with their barmaid girl friends. The title refers to kewpie dolls, tawdry fairground souvenirs, that they brings as gifts and come, in some readings of the play, to represent adolescent dreams in which the characters seem to be permanently trapped. The play tells the story in traditional well-made, realistic form, with effective curtains and an obligatory scene. Its principal appeal – and that of two later plays with which it forms The Doll Trilogy – is the freshness and emotional warmth, even sentimentality, with which it deals with simple virtues of innocence and youthful energy that lie at the heart of the Australian bush legend.

'Ray Lawler’s play confronts that legend with the harsh new reality of modern urban Australia. The 17th year of the canecutters’ arrangement is different. There has been a fight on the canefields and Roo, the tough, heroic, bushman, has arrived with his ego battered and without money. Barney’s girl friend Nancy has left to get married and is replaced by Pearl, who is suspicious of the whole set-up and hopes to trap Barney into marriage. The play charts the inevitable failure of the dream of the layoff, the end of the men’s supremacy as bush heroes and, most poignantly, the betrayal of the idealistic self-sacrifice made by Roo’s girl friend Olive – the most interesting character – to keep the whole thing going. The city emerges victorious, but the emotional tone of the play vindicates the fallen bushman.'

Source: McCallum, John. 'Summer of the Seventeenth Doll.' Companion to Theatre in Australia. Ed. Philip Parson and Victoria Chance. Sydney: Currency Press , 1997: 564-656.

'Setting her action in a large hospital, Miss Blewett has undertaken no simple task in dealing with nursing from both its practical and psychological aspects, complicated in two cases by individual emotional strains. The play covers the hours of one hectic night in the hospital, in which the emotional preoccupations of several of the staff intrude on their professional duties' ('Australian Play' Argus 10 March 1941, 6).

Characters

SISTER MURPHY of the day staff at St. Agnes’

PROBATIONER

SISTER RANKIN (FRANCES)

NURSE RUTH SINCLAIR 3^rd Year

NURSE JEAN SPARROW 1^st Year

NURSE WILLIAMS 1^st Year

NURSE PATSY CURTIN Junior

NURSE SMITH

NURSE ROBERTS

RUSSEL KEANE A Patient

DR. ANGUS MACREADY Resident Doctor at the Hospital

MRS. LEILA CLAYTON A patient

THE MATRON

DR. RICHARD CLAYTON

Musical extravaganza.

Presented in two acts, the story concerns Abu Hasan, an intrepid merchant-pirate who masquerades in various extravagant disguises (including that of a Hebrew Damascene and a Grecian prince), so that he and his forty brigands can plunder and humiliate the wealthy despots of the East, enriching Hasan's already overflowing and legendary cave. For this particular adventure, he becomes the great Chu Chin Chow of China as a means of gaining access to the palace of Kasim Baba. A secondary theme concerns the two lovely slave girls (Zahrat and Marjanah, the latter in love with Nur-Al-Hudra) who are determined to win their freedom. Zahat discovers Abu Hasan's true identity after 'Chu Chin Chow' kills Kasim, while Marjanah stumbles on the secret password for his hideout ('Open sesame'). She is then able to set in motion the opportunity they need. The women counter Chu Chin Chow's cunning with feminine guile and create the opportunity they need by bargaining with the brigand chieftain. Abu Hasan attempts to overcome their plan by attending the wedding of Marjanah and Nur disguised as a wealthy oil merchant, whose forty jars of 'oil' actually hold forty brigands. Zahat discovers both his identity and evil plans, and kills his men by pouring boiling oil over them. She then finishes the job by stabbing Abu Hasan to death.

The Saturday Review wrote of Chu Chin Chow's London closing in 1921:

'He came, like another Eastern, King David, to a good old age, full of riches and honour. But none can ever reign in his stead. There is left a gap in the life of London, and indeed of the country, which nothing can adequately fill, for Chu Chin Chow had become in truth part of the national life. Country cousins set out upon the desperate adventure of their first visit to the metropolis with the firm determination to see it come else what may. It had supplanted in their hearts the place usually reserved for the Abbey or the Tower. It had become a tradition which nothing can adequately fill' (qtd in Brisbane Courier 24 September 1921, p.13).

A radically altered version of Max Afford's play, designed for American audiences. In this version, 'A Japanese-born mystery novelist is suspected of the murder of a Japanese sympathizer and his chauffeur in Australia during World War II' (Playbill Vault).

According to contemporary newspapers:

Instead of the villain of the piece being a Nazi (as those who saw the play at the Independent will remember him) he is to be a Japanese spy operating in Australia, and the final rescue of the heroine in the New York version is to be carried out by American marines. Mention of General Macarthur is made in the script.

In cables to Mr. Afford, Mr. Kirkland explained that the changes were desirable because in America it is believed that the Nazis would soon be out of the war, and that, in any case, there was a great American interest in Australia and a play about this country would be a novelty in the United States.

Source:

'Australian Play for New York', Sydney Morning Herald, 11 December 1943, p.4.