Opting to present Ray Lawler’s complete Doll Trilogy was crazy brave: three plays, over seven hours of stage time, one tiny theatre, and a work that had not been seen complete on stage for more than 40 years. A big ask for a feisty, fearless independent ensemble of actors in a humble 79-seat red shed on the outskirts of St Kilda. Their tagline is “Red Stitch: the home of big little theatre”, and they clearly live it.
What began as a programming gamble became something larger: a test of whether audiences still had the appetite for slow-burn theatrical immersion, and whether an independent ensemble could turn endurance into intimacy.
Much of the passion for the project came from CEO Ella Caldwell, who was profoundly drawn to the trilogy and the richness of the two prequels. She saw the potential of the immersive experience of the trilogy early and championed it with the company and its creatives.
“From the beginning, my vision for The Doll Trilogy was always to present all three plays together on a single day. I wanted a way for the audience to enter this world, stay in it, and go on a journey through the decades with the characters as a shared experience,” she said.
A key ingredient was casting the same actors across all three plays – a decision Ella says was met with resistance from some sector confidants.
Ella’s initial idea to offer trilogy days at least every second Saturday didn’t make it into the initial program. Instead, the company scheduled one Saturday preview of the full trilogy, plus two additional Saturday trilogy performances. Bravely, the ‘opening night’ became an opening day, with all eight hours of the trilogy presented straight off the bat.
Box office intelligence
Penelope Thomson, who manages Red Stitch’s ticketing and front of house, was one of the first to notice that the “binge” presentation might be a hit.
“We offered two Saturday trilogy packages and they sold out almost immediately; we added another two, and they were booked out almost immediately.”
She expected strong sales for Kid Stakes, the first of the three plays which was on the drama curriculum and for Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, but the demand for full trilogy days was striking.
“In my job you get a feel for what will sell, and at first I had my doubts. But as we added more trilogy days, they sold out too,” she said.
Nearly eight hours on stage was daunting enough for actors and crew. Would today’s audiences commit to a long day’s journey into the theatre of the ’50s?
The logistics were daunting: nearly a whole working day’s worth of performance time, a 79-seat theatre, one small dressing room, a tiny foyer and one public toilet.
Here’s how they made it happen. On trilogy days, the audience arrived at noon for Kid Stakes. After the first play, they were given a 1950s afternoon tea — lamingtons and fruit under marquees overlooking the railway line and park. Other Times began at 4 pm and ended just after 6 pm, leaving a longer dinner break before The Doll began at 8 pm and finished close to 11 pm.
Would audiences dwindle during the later stages, something that would be obvious to all in a tiny theatre? If people stayed, could they hack it? Had Red Stitch bitten off more than it could chew?
But there was more on the line than the success of the trilogy days. The Doll Trilogy would account for a third of Red Stitch’s 2026 season — a major gamble for any independent company.
Time travelling, back and forth
Another crucial decision was to resist the urge to modernise the work in response to the easy critique that the trilogy needed translation for modern sensibilities.
This project was to be a time capsule with a twist. The origin play was an international hit after transfixing Australian audiences with its local voice when it debuted at Melbourne’s Union Theatre in 1955 with author Ray Lawler playing Barney.
The twist was not a plot change or a contemporary refresh, but a commitment to stage the three plays together for the first time in 40 years. Red Stitch would take audiences back through the prequels, then forward again to see the massive arc of war, immigration and time’s erosion of personal dreams.
Few people alive would have seen the 1955 production, though some who saw the 1990s staging may have been in the audience. Many more would have known the work by reputation: a landmark of Australian theatre whose influence extended from the stage to the screen.
Greater than the sum of its parts
Actors Ben Prendergast and Ngaire Dawn Fair were part of the monumental task almost from the beginning.
Rehearsing and performing what became a seven-and-a-half-hour theatrical binge was, as Ben describes it, “an experiment” — and a project no one could fully prepare for.
With late cast changes, actors working around film and theatre commitments, and only six months of rehearsal before a 13-week run, the production relied heavily on teamwork. “If we weren’t going to pull together as a team of champions, then it would quickly go off the rails,” Ben notes.
From their viewpoint, a major triumph of the production was the trilogy days, which quickly sold out before any other performances. Despite initial worries that audiences wouldn’t have the stamina for such a long sitting, the response was overwhelmingly positive. “We had a mutually beautiful experience with the audiences who stayed,” Ngaire said.
The intimate setting of the Red Stitch theatre brought its own unique challenges and magic. The front rows were so close to the action that they were practically inside the “time capsule” with the actors. This proximity made the dramatic moments — like the smashing of the vase and the destruction of the doll — incredibly intense. Ben recalls the delicate balance of executing these scripted moments of ruin while maintaining the viability of the props for subsequent shows.
Actor Caroline Lee said the trilogy days created an unusual compact between cast and audience. Because many people stayed through the whole day, the actors could feel a shared understanding of the endurance involved — and a growing pleasure as references, memories and foreshadowing accumulated across the plays.
“There was a kind of magical quality to it when you’re going through such a long experience with an audience and with characters – It’s quite intimate,” she reflected.
She identified the audacious, event-style format as key to capturing the public’s imagination and drawing new audiences to Red Stitch.
Tuning in to the Australian voice
The original play captured audiences with its theatre vérité presentation of character, language and accent — a sharp contrast to the more formal theatre style of its time.
The cast initially worried about the period accent, but Caldwell chose not to begin rehearsals there. The actors first worked in their own voices, then refined the sound with dialect coach Geraldine Cook-Dafner, who focused on small vowel shifts rather than a forced “old Australian” performance.
For Caroline, the long rehearsal period allowed the vernacular, history and accent to brew.
Capturing the sounds of the inner city
Composer and sound designer Daniel Nixon built a sound world that stretched beyond the single living room used for all three plays.
Drawing on period research, vintage cars, tram noises, door slams and local bird calls, he helped place the audience inside an inner-city Melbourne that could be heard but not seen.
Rachel Burke’s nuanced lighting design also helped evoke the domestic worlds of the trilogy’s three periods.
A magical dozen
Looking back, Ella acknowledged the passion, doubt and relief that crazy-brave theatre can elicit.
“Undertaking something this vast was on occasion terrifying,” Ella said. “I had middle-of-the-night worries about whether we were doing the beautifully written story justice.”
“But this sort of pressure is natural and is countered by just sticking your head down and doing the detailed work. There was also uncertainty about how the team would manage the exhaustive Trilogy days, but this evaporated as the ensemble actors discovered that they relished the experience of the marathon days.”
The process, she said, left the ensemble deeply connected to previous generations of their own families, and the history of Melbourne.
Ultimately, the trilogy days were fully booked for 10 performances in St Kilda, plus one each on the Ballarat and Hobart tours.
Stage manager Finn McLeish, speaking on a day off while touring Bluey’s Big Play, summed it up simply: “The trilogy days brought the cast and crew together like no other production. We ate together, napped together and laughed together.”
Magic.
Red Stitch: The Doll Trilogy Creative team
Writer Ray Lawler AO OBE
Director Ella Caldwell
Set/Costume Design Jacob Battista & Sophie Woodward
Lighting Design Rachel Burke
Composition/Sound Design Daniel Nixon
Stage Manager Finn McLeish
Deputy Stage Manager Mia Ushakov
Dialect Coach Geraldine Cook-Dafner
Intimacy Coordinator Margot Fenley
Fight Choreographer Lyndall Grant
Lighting Technician Sam Martin
Costume Technician/ASM Lindsay Gerhardt
16th Street Director Apprenticeship Laura Ozzimo
Cast
Ngaire Dawn Fair
Emily Goddard
Khisraw Jones-Shukoor
John Leary
Caroline Lee
Ben Prendergast
Lucinda Smith
TWiSK is proud sponsor of Red Stitch
Vale Rachel Burke
We write to celebrate and commemorate a dearly loved friend and collaborator, Rachel Burke.
Rachel was one of the greatest theatre artists of our time, with an extensive and critically acclaimed body of work over more than three decades for main stage companies, independent theatre, and architectural lighting design both nationally and internationally.
Beyond her extraordinary artistic vision, Rachel was a beautiful light herself. She embraced those around her with warmth and depth that made you a more courageous artist. Working alongside Rachel you felt the resonance of her heart and her vision. Her passion, insight and caring nature persisted alongside a rigour and depth of talent that enriched every piece she made.
We, along with many others across the country, are devastated by her loss. We are sharing this news and some words in her honour, penned by just a few of the many people who loved Rachel. We remain grateful to have had the honour to work with her and to know her, and strive to carry her energy with us. Our hearts are with Rachel’s family.
Ella & everyone at Red Stitch
