act outlines
Act One
Summary of Act 2.
·The act begins on New Year’s Eve, Olive spends it crying and wandering why things are different to how they usually are.
·Secrets and lies are revealed in this act, it’s all building up to the major climax of the play. There is also a lot of tension between the characters that starts to emerge. For instance, Pearl/Olive – Pearl is being stuck up and needs a reality check. And Roo/Barney – Roo is worried he’s getting too old and Barney wants things to go back to how they were.
·Olive’s crying a lot more and is also sad most of the time.
·Olive is starting to see the lay-off differently, Pearl tells Olive it’s not all she talked it up to be and this upsets Olive. She realises that her dream life is really only an illusion.
·Olive believes that Pearl can replace Nancy.
·We start to see Bubba growing up and becoming her own person. She wants to be involved in the same things as Olive, Roo, and Barney etc. The races are a perfect example of this. She also shows a romantic interest in Dowd.
·We find out the real reason why Roo broke down in the canefields is because he was getting old and his ego couldn’t handle it – feared that Dowd had replaced him and was a “better man” than he was, he didn’t have a bad back at all. Barney brings this piece of information to everyone’s attention.
·Also we find out that Barney is a bit of a womaniser and a drunk, his reputation with the ladies has been going downhill for quite some time now. He seems to lack emotional depth. He slept with a lot of women whilst working in the canefields.
·We are introduced to Johnnie Dowd, he worked with Barney and Roo in the canefields; Barney brings him down in hope to rekindle his friendship with Roo so things can go back to how they used to be. Before all the fighting begun. This doesn’t go as planned; Roo has a lot of resentment towards Dowd. It’s just causes more fights.
·Barney and Pearl have a fight about Vera going to the races as Dowd’s ‘date’. Pearl cries. She doesn’t want Vera growing up like she did, she wants her to have an education and keep good company.
·Dowd asks Bubba to the races as Vera was no longer an option, she accepts and is excited to go with everyone. Even the fighting happening between everyone doesn’t stop her from wanting to go with Dowd.
·Barney and Roo fight, Barney apparently has “betrayed the code of mateship”. When he wants to try and work on his friendship with Roo by inviting him grape-picking, but because of his pride and ego Roo refuses.
·The seventeenth doll breaks whilst in amidst of the huge fight in the end of the act represents the ending and breaking up of relationships. All the lies and secrets have now been revealed.
- This is the exposition, where the situation is presented to us, and we can learn about the characters and what they add to this situation; how they fit in with the scheme of things.
- Pearl is obviously an outsider, who is dressed to impress, and acts as a character through whom we can learn what is happening, and what has happened in the past. We can see she is nervous, and we appreciate this, because we realise what a strange arrangement this must be as seen by society, and notice that it is frowned on initially by Pearl,'I'm not letting myself in for any nasty mess, either.'who relaxes slightly through the scene.
- We can see that Olive is a dreamer, and has a firm ideal of the lay-off, and how it should proceed. She paints a portrait of the men for us,"...the regulars'd stand aside to let 'em through, just as if they was a - a coupla kings." which helps us to see into Olive's perceptive of the lay-off, and how it has affected her. She obviously looks up to the two men, and paints them as 'kings'. We see a contrast between Pearl and Olive straight away; Pearl confronts Olive about the arrangement, and we can see the cynicism with which Pearl is contrasted to Olive.
- Olive is contemptuous of Nancy's choice to leave and get married; she sees it as a betrayal of the ultimate dream she has for the season.
- Roo and Barney are not immediately obviously the 'kings' we heard Olive describe, but we see the 'Aussie larrikan' in them both, especially Barney. Roo is somewhat more the strong and silent type, who has suffered a defeat badly, having turned to alcohol to get away from it. We cannot really identify them as being able to sustain an ongoing relationship like this, because they don't seem to be able to go much deeper than the physical - Roo with his pride letting him down, and Barney with peer pressure preventing him joining his mate - all superficial qualities associated with fairly shallow-minded characters, on the whole.
- The presentation of the seventeenth doll to Olive by Roo focuses us on potential for the ongoing happiness of the relationships, but already we can see that this summer will be different from every other. We can see the tensions already between characters, especially between Roo and Barney, and Pearl and Olive, and the pressure on Pearl to be like Nancy for Barney.
- When Olive begins to talk so protectively and sentimentally of the dolls, we can begin to see the depth of Olive's dream. The dolls represent not only her dream, but are her reminder throughout the working season that there is someone who loves her; what's more, a stereotypical 'heroic' working Aussie larrikan who has a sensitive side to him. It is a symbol of her self-delusion. On the other hand, Roo's almost uncaring attitude toward the dolls and be seen as a typical male reaction to sentimentality, or as the prelude to disappointment for Olive as she realises he doesn't share the same dream as she does.
Summary of Act 2.
·The act begins on New Year’s Eve, Olive spends it crying and wandering why things are different to how they usually are.
·Secrets and lies are revealed in this act, it’s all building up to the major climax of the play. There is also a lot of tension between the characters that starts to emerge. For instance, Pearl/Olive – Pearl is being stuck up and needs a reality check. And Roo/Barney – Roo is worried he’s getting too old and Barney wants things to go back to how they were.
·Olive’s crying a lot more and is also sad most of the time.
·Olive is starting to see the lay-off differently, Pearl tells Olive it’s not all she talked it up to be and this upsets Olive. She realises that her dream life is really only an illusion.
·Olive believes that Pearl can replace Nancy.
·We start to see Bubba growing up and becoming her own person. She wants to be involved in the same things as Olive, Roo, and Barney etc. The races are a perfect example of this. She also shows a romantic interest in Dowd.
·We find out the real reason why Roo broke down in the canefields is because he was getting old and his ego couldn’t handle it – feared that Dowd had replaced him and was a “better man” than he was, he didn’t have a bad back at all. Barney brings this piece of information to everyone’s attention.
·Also we find out that Barney is a bit of a womaniser and a drunk, his reputation with the ladies has been going downhill for quite some time now. He seems to lack emotional depth. He slept with a lot of women whilst working in the canefields.
·We are introduced to Johnnie Dowd, he worked with Barney and Roo in the canefields; Barney brings him down in hope to rekindle his friendship with Roo so things can go back to how they used to be. Before all the fighting begun. This doesn’t go as planned; Roo has a lot of resentment towards Dowd. It’s just causes more fights.
·Barney and Pearl have a fight about Vera going to the races as Dowd’s ‘date’. Pearl cries. She doesn’t want Vera growing up like she did, she wants her to have an education and keep good company.
·Dowd asks Bubba to the races as Vera was no longer an option, she accepts and is excited to go with everyone. Even the fighting happening between everyone doesn’t stop her from wanting to go with Dowd.
·Barney and Roo fight, Barney apparently has “betrayed the code of mateship”. When he wants to try and work on his friendship with Roo by inviting him grape-picking, but because of his pride and ego Roo refuses.
·The seventeenth doll breaks whilst in amidst of the huge fight in the end of the act represents the ending and breaking up of relationships. All the lies and secrets have now been revealed.