When Ray Lawler’s play Summer of the Seventeenth Doll premiered in 1955, it was a watershed moment in Australian theatre, given its groundbreaking portrayal of distinctly Australian characters. Set in Melbourne in 1953, it features cane cutters Roo and Barney, who return to the city between harvests to spend time with Olive and Nancy. But this year, things have changed. Nancy is married, so Olive has invited the rather condescending Pearl to take her place. What’s more, Roo is tired of cane cutting and wants to settle down. Two decades later, Lawler wrote two prequels: Kid Stakes set in 1937 and Other Times set in 1945. In a bold venture, Red Stitch’s Artistic Director Ella Caldwell is directing the trilogy – the first time all three plays have been staged together since 1985. You can see them separately or on one day. How will they fare today? Time will tell.

Limelight Editor’s Choice

It’s 1945, and the world has shifted. The war is ending, but its effects are written on the lives of Roo, Barney, Olive and Nancy. Bubba is now grown, and her youthful idealism is confronted by the harsh realities of post-war Melbourne. Emma, usually the voice of pragmatism, takes a leap into something new.

Other Times explores fractured loyalties, the evolving roles of women, and the tensions between freedom and responsibility. Woven with humour, tenderness and grit, Lawler’s play reveals how working class Australians navigated love, work, and survival in extraordinary times.