26/07/2024
FOR THOSE STUDIED AUS THEATRE… WHAT AN INNINGS!
Vale - Mr Lawler! A Doll that changed my world 😞
Ray Lawler, author of the legendary Australian drama Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, has died in Melbourne at the age of 103. His family announced that Lawler died peacefully on the evening of Wednesday 24 July after a brief illness. The playwright had lived at his home in Elwood, Victoria since 1975.
Over a long career, Lawler was an actor, director and playwright. His most famous play, Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, was first performed at Melbourne University’s Union Theatre in 1955, followed by extensive tours across Australia before transferring to London’s West End in 1957 and Broadway in 1958. It was adapted to a film in 1959. The play is credited with changing the direction of Australian drama. It has been translated and performed in many countries around the world.
Lawler wrote two more plays featuring characters from The Doll: Kid Stakes (1975) and Other Times (1976). In 1978 the three plays were published by Currency Press as The Doll Trilogy. Lawler’s other plays include Hal’s Belles (1945), Cradle of Thunder (1952), The Piccadilly Bushman (1959), The Unshaven Cheek (1963), A Breach in the Wall (1967), The Man Who Shot the Albatross (1972), and Godsend (1982).
Lawler is survived by his wife, the former Brisbane actress Jacklyn Kelleher, and their three children, with three grandchildren and two great grandchildren.
Lawler was named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1980 and an Officer of the Australian Order (AO) in 2023. The smaller theatre space, the Lawler, in the Melbourne Theatre Company's Southbank Theatre is named after him.
Image 2, left to right: Ray Lawler as Barney, June Jago as Olive, Roma Johnston as Pearl, Noel Ferrier as Roo, Fenella Maguire as Bubba and Carmel Dunn (seated) as Emma in the 1995 Union Theatre Company production of Summer of the Seventeenth Doll in Melbourne.WHO
