Essay Preview: Away
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AWAY is set to the background of post-war baby-boom Australia when Australians were preoccupied with Vietnam and the divisions within society. With an elegant simplicity and a finely tuned sense of humor, Michael Gow traces three ordinary, yet very different, families setting off on their Christmas holidays during the summer of 1967-68. As in Shakespearean and classical Greek drama, these journeys are turned into spiritual quests.
The themes of reconciliation and loss emerge as one family deals with the death of their son in the Vietnam War, another faces the prospect of losing their son through leukemia, and the other by their daughter simply growing up.
The families all head to the coast for their annual summer holidays to celebrate the new year and embark on a pilgrimage with great implications. All three families are brought together on the beach as a result of a violent storm where the process of healing begins.
The hopes of a new generation, presented by the central characters of Meg and Tom, rise above the social, cultural, and economic tensions faced by their parents. In a rich, poetic and prophetic way, their time away by the sea heals their battered spirits and deepens their sense of going home.
The play, framed by two of Shakespeares works, King Lear and Mid Summer Nights Dream, has allusive references to Shakespearean and Greek themes throughout. The main character Tom, who is physically dying but seeks to live every moment, has an alter ego of Shakespeares Puck. In one outbreak of rage, Tom brings down a puckish spell on his mother by saying “I hope you have a rotten holiday. I hope it rains. I hope the dunnies overflow and you all get the runs.”
This moving play prompts us to consider what is ultimately most important in our lives.
Away is sharply observed, clever, funny and yet very moving. Out of the familiar family ingredients,