“The Doll”, coming to The Playhouse soon, is a theatrical gem and getting Neil Armfield’s Belvoir Theatre revival to open the Canberra Theatre’s subscription season is quite a coup.

Written in 1954 by actor Ray Lawler, the play deals with the great issues of life – truth versus illusion, youth versus age and realism versus romanticism.

The tinselly 17th Kewpie doll in barmaid Olive’s terrace house in Carlton signals the 17th year of the “layoff” season, where cane cutters Roo and Barney descend on Melbourne from northern Queensland “like eagles flyin’ down out of the sun” for fun and distinctly non-marital love with their barmaid girlfriends.

But fun and love alone don’t make a play, and this year, Barney’s girl, Nancy, has gone off and got married.

That’s where Thomson comes in. She gets to play the respectable, aspirational barmaid Pearl, cajoled by Olive into substituting for Nancy. I catch her by phone at a Blue Mountains home where she’s preparing for the Brisbane tour.

Pearl, she tells me, is “partly the audience’s eyes” since she, too, is discovering what goes on during the summer layoff, but she rejects the idea that Pearl is a bit of a prude about sex.

Thomson sees Pearl as “a lovely character… people tell me, ‘she’s just like my mother or my auntie’… she has the morals of the 1950s… to Pearl, it’s Olive’s non-married way of life that’s against the tide.”

Pearl, she says, delivers a blast of realism, saying: “Us lot, glamorous?” But she changes, by Act II, becoming more relaxed and comfortable.

Unlike Olive, who’s never grown up (she still lives with her mum, played by Robyn Nevin), Pearl has been out in the world, had a daughter, been married and widowed. While Olive wants life to be romantic and rejects marriage, Pearl is a realist and a survivor.

Sounds grim? Definitely not, Thomson says it’s full of humour, greeted with roars and standing ovations by audiences in Sydney and Melbourne who “absolutely enjoyed meeting all the characters”.

And, bearing in mind that “The Doll” is still, after all these years, The Great Australian Play, they’ve been “enormously spoiled” to have had regular contact with the 90-year-old playwright, Ray Lawler.

“He’s absolutely with it,” Thomson says.

“Summer of the Seventeenth Doll”, The Playhouse, March 14-17. Bookings to 6275 2700. The theatre is hosting screenings and talks about the play. Visit canberratheatrecentre.com.au/thedoll for details.