Don's Party arrived on the theatre scene in Australia in 1972 with the same sort of impact that the character Cooley has when he arrives at the party in the play. It was energetic and fun; it was exhilaratingly frank and, in the process, gloriously obscene; and it deflated a lot of the pretensions of the new young professionals who came to the theatres and who are represented in the play. Above all, for the critics and audiences at the time at least, it was Australian. As the critic H.G. Kippax said, 'There isn't a line, and not a character, that hasn't the ring—just off-key—of one part of Australia, larger than life.'

This accurate social observation of Australian life was an important part of the play's great appeal for audiences. By bringing together at the election night party eleven representatives of a certain part of Australian society and allowing the grog, the sexual frustrations and the waning political hopes to have their effects, the play revealed inner failings and feelings of disillusionment in the characters with which a lot of people seemed to identify. The play was, in part at least, a sociological document—which means that now it may be becoming, in part at least, an historical document. This raises the first important issue in studying the play.