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Play written by Ray Lawler

Summer of the Seventeenth Doll is an Australian play written by Ray Lawler and first performed at the Union Theatre in Melbourne on 28 November 1955. The play is considered to be the most significant in Australian theatre history, and a "turning point", openly and authentically portraying distinctly Australian life and characters. It was one of the first truly naturalistic "Australian" theatre productions. It was originally published by Angus & Robertson, before moving to Fontana Press and then Currency Press.

The play is set in Australia, in the Melbourne suburb of Carlton and it details the events of the summer of 1953, in the lives of six central characters. The structure of the play is such that the nature of these characters and their situation and history is not revealed immediately, but rather gradually established as the story unfolds. By the end, the story and all its facets have been indirectly explained. The summer that the story spans marks the 17th year of an annual tradition in the lives of the characters, wherein two masculine sugarcane cutters, Arthur "Barney" Ibbot and Reuben "Roo" Webber, travel south to Melbourne for five months of frivolity and celebration with two city women, Olive Leech and Nancy (Roo bringing with him as a gift for Olive a kewpie doll, hence the name of the play). One of the women, Nancy, has apparently married some months before, and she is not present in the play, so in her place Olive has invited Pearl Cunningham to partake in the tradition. The other women present in the play are Kathie "Bubba" Ryan, a 22 year old girl who has been coveting Olive and Nancy's lifestyle from her neighbouring house almost all her life, and Emma Leech, Olive's cynical, irritable, but wise mother. As the play progresses, it becomes obvious that, for many collective reasons, this summer is different from others; it is full of tensions, strains to recreate lost youth, and from what is said of previous years, not a fraction of the fun that others have been. Steadily things become worse; Roo is revealed to be broke and is forced to take a job in a paint factory. He is disillusioned with his age and weaknesses, while relations between Barney and him are in doubt, due to a recent question of loyalty. The situation is agitated in part by Pearl's uptight indignation and refusal to accept the lifestyle she is being presented with as "proper" or "decent". The play ends with a bitter fight between Olive and Roo after he proposes marriage to her and she is affronted, threatened by the prospect of any lifestyle other than the one to which she is accustomed. In the final scene, the two men leave together, the summer prematurely ended and the characters' futures uncertain. Summer of the Seventeenth Doll is part of a trilogy generally referred to as the Doll Trilogy; the story of The Doll is preceded by the prequels Kid Stakes (1975), set in 1937, which tells the story of the first year of the tradition and the origin of the gift of the Kewpie doll, and Other Times (1976), which is set in 1945 and includes most of the same characters.

Encouraged by its wholehearted reception in Australia and Britain, Summer of the Seventeenth Doll took a trip to America, where audiences and critics were rather underwhelmed with the production, most likely due to drastic cultural differences The play opened in New York City on 23 January 1958, with no changes made to the cast. The Doll only ran for a five week season in America. However, in 1967, Summer of the Seventeenth Doll featuring an all black cast, was produced to great acclaim as one of four plays in the inaugural season of The Negro Ensemble Company with an international bill that included Kongi's Harvest by Wole Soyinka, Song of the Lusitanian Bogey by Peter Weiss, and Daddy Goodness by American playwright Richard Wright.

After continuing to tour Australia through 1958, Summer of the Seventeenth Doll was adapted by Leslie Norman for Hecht Hill Lancaster Productions – whose first film had been Marty with Ernest Borgnine – for United Artists in 1959. The film was retitled Season of Passion for the American market. This decision was severely lamented by some fans of the play, whose complaints were rooted in three essential criticisms:
The "Americanisation" of the text, namely the casting of American actor Ernest Borgnine, who played his character (Roo) with an American accent. Others have thought the film was a recruiting film for migrants with the Englishman John Mills as Barney and Alan García as Dino, an Italian friend and fellow cane cutter who does not feature in the play. The female leads were played by Anne Baxter and Angela Lansbury, though the film featured many Australian actors. It was set in Sydney rather than Melbourne. The drastic changes to key plot points, namely the alternative, "happy" ending that the 1959 film adaptation entailed. This alternate ending was considered by some to be representative of a dire misunderstanding of the play and its message, and by others an attempt to make the film an international success at the box office and critical acclaim similar to the kitchen sink realism of Marty. The producers also added a comedy sequence where a young girl attempted to trick Roo in a tent at Luna Park.