Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, one of the first plays to authentically portray Australians and their speech, has been selected by the National Archives as its December find of the month.

Written in 1953 by Ray Lawler, an Australian actor, dramatist and producer, the play follows the fortunes of canecutters Roo and Barney. After a tense season, the pair arrives in inner-city Melbourne for a summer of fun with their city girlfriends. But this year, the seventeenth that Roo has brought a kewpie doll for Olive, things just aren’t the same.

The Doll, as it became known, is significant as one of the first plays to depict Australian speech on stage. With terms such as ‘strewth’, ‘larrikins’ and chockablock’ and phrases like ‘up there Cazaly’ and ‘did his block’ it provided a new experience for theatregoers.

‘At the time, there were comments about the use of the vernacular, with people saying it wasn’t proper English,’ said National Archives exhibitions manager Caroline Webber. ‘The play came out at a time when Australians identified culture with a sense of Britishness. It helped develop an aspect of Australian culture that reflected our own identity.

‘This was written 20 years before we saw Australian plays such as Don’s Party by David Williamson. As the first to portray Australians authentically on stage, Lawler must have exerted an influence on the playwrights who emerged in the 1960s and 70s.

‘The play was popular with both city and country audiences. It portrayed the very Australian experiences of cane cutting and mateship but was set in inner-city Carlton,’ said Ms Webber. ‘It captured the imagination of the Australian people and was also successful in London and on Broadway.’

Lawler submitted a copyright application for the play to the Commonwealth Patent Office in January 1956, three months after the first production opened at the Russell Street Theatre in Melbourne. He enclosed a cardboard-covered, hand-sewn copy of the typewritten script with his application. This script is on display at the National Archives in Canberra and also online at Find of the Month.

The copyright application was finalised in June 1956, just before the play was performed by the Australian cast in the West End. 

Now part of The Doll Trilogy, along with Kid Stakes and Other Times, the play continues to be produced and studied and remains an iconic depiction of Australian life in the 1950s.

In conjunction with the Find of the Month, the National Archives choir has recorded as a podcast the song 'The Summer of the Seventeenth Doll' written by Bob Mashford in 1959, which can also be heard online.