tomato tomato

It's a sad thing but the first thing I thought of when I sat down to the Summer of the Seventeenth Doll at the Belvoir, after another mad dash up the hill from work, was that I wanted the eponymous dolls they had on the set, being sixteen in all (the seventeenth arrives in Act 1). I used to collect 'em, the dolls, or show fairies as they're called up here (it's a Melbourne play) and I'm pretty sure I cracked seventeen (really can't be bothered to re-count, they still decorate my dresser, bunched in a couple of vases. I just thought they were pretty when I was a kid and they were the only thing I spent my money on those special years I went to the show.

Anyhoo, the play, which I studied at school (my old curriculum must be up again because if I can get tickets to a couple more shows I'll pretty much have all the plays I had to study but never, ever saw or even heard performed ticked off and done) and I finally, finally saw it performed on stage at last. It's still as brutal as I remember, but also much funnier and sly as well, and how on earth was I, a child, supposed to get, I mean really understand, the whole thing about the last doll, the way I do now (all things must end).

Anyway, I wouldn't say it was a fun night, the play is still, sixty years on, far too raw as the characters tear each other to pieces in the last act, to say it was fun. But I was so glad to see it. It finally made sense in ways laboured schoolroom readings just never did. I get it now. I really do, and I'm still mulling it over. Stays with you, it does, a good play.

And it is such a classic, everyone knew it when I mentioned having seen it, the taxi driver home, the fruit stall guy this morning. I think we all had to study it at school - grin.
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