As you walk down the narrow corridor that bridges Red Stitch’s foyer and stage, the walls pressing in, and arrive at a pair of shabby French doors standing ajar, glass clouded with age. You enter and, like a portal into a bygone era, you’re transported to a quaint boarding house in Depression-era Carlton: muted floral wallpaper, a plush green armchair, and a framed print declaring “Strong Drink is a Mocker” above a modest brown piano. The first summer, brimming with promise, awaits.
In honour of its 25th anniversary, Red Stitch Actors’ Theatre is reviving a cultural monument. Not since 1985 has Ray Lawler’s The Doll Trilogy – comprising the Australian classic Summer of the Seventeenth Doll and its later-written prequels Kid Stakes and Other Times – been staged in its entirety. But in 2026, under the assured direction of Artistic Director Ella Caldwell, the trilogy famed for giving voice to working-class Australians returns, ready to reach a new generation of theatre-goers.
Offering a unique viewing model, audiences can watch all three plays in marathon succession or as a choose-your-own-adventure, charting the theatrical odyssey in whichever order they please. Having chosen to move chronologically through the trilogy’s seventeen-year span, I encountered Kid Stakes without the gift – or, perhaps more aptly, the burden – of hindsight. Unfamiliar with Summer of the Seventeenth Dollbeyond its formidable reputation, I experienced the piece not as prelude nor as shadow, but as a beginning gloriously unaware of what’s to come. What emerges is an enduring portrait of youth in motion, alive with the tender embraces, knowing glances and naïve idealism of young people on the precipice of becoming.
Written 20 years after The Doll but set 17 years before it, Kid Stakes introduces us to the characters we will follow through the decades, capturing the days before the disillusionment. When Roo and Barney – cane-cutters from Queensland – arrive in Melbourne for the layoff season, they set their sights on boarding with milliners turned barmaids Olive and Nancy, much to the chagrin of Olive’s no-nonsense mother, Emma. Thus begins a summer ritual, sealed each year by Roo’s gifting of a kewpie doll to Olive – an unconventional promise of loyalty in place of marriage.
As to be expected at Red Stitch, the performances across the board are spectacular. Each of the ensemble members captures Lawler’s sparkling wit, vernacular, and humanity with ease, and Caldwell’s mastery of tension guides the piece with a hand as steady as it is sure. Emily Goddard’s free and frisky Nancy – slinking around the stage with a striking self-possession – is the perfect complement to Ngaire Dawn Fair’s innocent, wide-eyed Olive as she stands on the cusp of adulthood.
As the stern matriarch who, according to Barney, is “never pleased with nothing”, Caroline Lee’s Emma is a sharp-tongued cynic desperately clinging to the customs she knows. Ben Prendergast’s Roo splits the difference between swagger and vulnerability, while John Leary’s Barney – played mostly for comedic relief – is all bravado and bluster. They stand in stark contrast to Khisraw Jones-Shukoor’s stuttering, well-meaning Dickie, whose grey suit fittingly blends right into the wallpaper. The cast’s chemistry is undeniable, their relationships with each other palpable, and their evolutions set up to be keenly felt.
A beautifully resonant window into working-class 1930s Australia, the first instalment of this ambitious triptych hums with energy, humour and poignancy, earning laughs and reflection in equal measure. Importantly, Red Stitch refuses to reduce Kid Stakes to a static period piece reliant upon its seminal successor for relevancy or significance. It may have been written to provide context (and, of course, it does), but what unfolds is not merely scaffolding for a masterpiece. No: in the hands of Red Stitch, Kid Stakes is a fully realised study of youth, ritual and fragile devotion, transcending its reductive “companion” status to stand firmly on its own.
Image: Kid Stakes with Ben Prendergast, Ngaire Dawn Fair, Emily Goddard, John Leary
