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Away
Three Australian families set out separately but are driven together by a storm (5 acts, 6 men, 4 women).
82 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1986
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 46 reviews
December 13, 2023
One of my favourite plays to watch, despite feeling a tad two-dimensional and diminished on the page. And it isn’t really that rewarding a text for high school English study, but better discovered in maturity when its nuances can be appreciated from a more experienced viewpoint of life’s bounty of richness and sorrow.
May 23, 2017
I went to see this play on the weekend. Essentially it is the story of three families – although, I was thinking before that you could much more easily say it was the story of three women (in fact, some of the advertising referred to it as a triptych of three mothers) or even of their three children, in ways you really couldn’t say it was about three fathers. The blurb on the advertising also made it seem this would be much more about social class than it ended up being –although, clearly that was also a major theme – which is interesting, as Australia has this image of itself as the great egalitarian society (something much more true when this play was set (1968) than even today) and so that these issues even get an airing is worth considering.
I think it is best to think of this play from the perspective of parental fear – and so perhaps that is why the focus is on the three mothers. The three mothers have much to worry about in relation to their children. One of the children, of course, never appears in the play – having recently been killed in Vietnam after being called up in the draft. This is the child of the local head master – and, hardly surprisingly, the mother is yet to have gotten over this.
The son of some recently arrived migrants from England is in remission from blood cancer – so is living under a death sentence even though he looks fine. His parents are keeping this a secret from him, but he has been able to guess his fate from what his doctor has and hasn’t said to him. Here we have a family based around ‘protective silences’ – with both parents and the child refusing to say what they know so as the protect the ones they love. There is a lovely bit early in the play where this is made explicit in relation to the trivial – so as to make it clear later the importance of this when the matter is the son dying – this is the holiday they are about to take – and both mother and father speak to the son separately to say they know how little he really wants to go on the holiday and how little he is likely to enjoy it, but if he could just pretend to be having fun for the sake of the other parent, who really needs to believe he is enjoying himself, that would be an act of kindness. This was so touching, even while meant to be funny in terms of the play, I think – for it plays with the multiple layers of truth and of mild dissembling that are meant as acts of love.
The third mother has a daughter and the daughter is clearly interested in the boy with cancer – despite not knowing he has cancer. The mother’s worry isn’t his cancer – she doesn’t know about that either yet – but rather that this boy is clearly not from the same social class as her daughter – and she is of that class of people who are certain that hard work and determination are all that is required to move between classes, and so if you are of one class it is a personal and moral failing. The ever-present fear of pregnancy is unavoidable and the daughter being given a piece of jewellery by the boy following the two young people acting in the school production of A Mid-Summer Night’s Dream together (which is how the play begins) does nothing to allay her parents’ fears.
The notions of time played out here are really interesting – with the middle class parents fixated on the future (and the various permutations of such a future playing out in their fears), the English parents having to live in the immediate present, since their son will soon be dead and they can’t bring themselves to think about that, and the wife of the principal to whom time has more or less stopped – although, perhaps the true cruelty is that it hasn’t stopped at all and each day brings her further and further away from her son.
The three families go off on summer holidays – all go off to various beach locations – the school principal to the Gold Coast (think Florida), the parents with the daughter to a caravan park with their van and the English family to a relatively local beach with a tent that leans against their car. The principal’s wife is under orders to ‘be normal’ and so she spends a lot of time talking to people about their lives. Eventually she is drawn to a young man, just married, who is, presumably, about the same age of her now dead son. Their relationship is discovered by the principal who threatens to have her sent to an asylum so she can have electric shock treatment. What is particularly interesting here is the notion that grief, in its many guises, is something that can be ‘treated’ using technology. Also the notion that because they are living in Australia (a nation with one of the highest standards of living in the world – we are repeatedly told) this means sometimes we must make sacrifices (aka: sending our children off to die in countries we couldn’t previously find on a map) to ensure the continuation of that standard of living. That this might overcome the grief of a mother probably ought to sound bizarre to us – at least, I would like to believe it would.
She runs away from the Gold Coast holiday and ends up on the same beach that the English family are holidaying at – the son and her end up performing a play together – one involving her crippling herself due to the loss of a lover (a ghost, no less) and the ghost saving her at the cost of his own eternal damnation. All of which looks a bit like the power of art over technology as a means of addressing mental anguish.
The middle class family with the daughter also end up on the same beach after a storm wrecks virtually everything at the caravan park. The mother controls everything in the family through a series of complaints about the ineffectualness of both the father and daughter. That this is a game the father plays along with, effectively creating situations (the loss of car keys, the forgetting of presents) that then allow the mother to have something to complain about – is something the daughter hasn’t really understood and therefore something the daughter makes explicit only to be put back in place by both mother and father – again, families are about the unspoken, even if the unspoken isn’t quite as consequential as cancer. I’ve a feeling people will see this scene quite differently to how I’ve read it – seeing the daughter as the speaker of truth in the family – but truth comes onion like.
A doctor has told the young man who is on the cusp of the slide into degeneration and from there onto death that if he wants to ever have sex, now is the time to be getting on with it. So, he asks the daughter of the middle class parents – note, this is the worst of her parents’ fears realised, given that were she to become pregnant there is no question of him marrying her and so on. This scene is interesting for so many reasons – not least that the standard trope here is being played with, for it is generally the young man about to go off to the war who gets to have sex in this way. I’ve never found sex a simple thing – which is a pity, as I’m sure if it were a simple thing it would be much more enjoyable – and so sex proves here as well. Look, you don’t have sex with someone just because they are dying – everyone one is dying, it is the basic human condition, but there is something really troubling about the idea of a doctor telling a young man he should have sex as soon as possible and this being the way the young man finds out he is dying. Something deeply troubling. I think I would rather a doctor just said to me I was going to die than, ‘now would be a good time for you to get a root’.
The play ends with a group of students, presumably the middle class daughter in among them, but I may have missed this, studying the first scene of King Lear – any play that moves from A Mid-Summer’s Night Dream to King Lear probably isn’t going to make you want to sing and dance on the way home – in fact, I found myself choking back tears at the end, Lear does that to me anyway, but here it was particularly poignant (I’m bloody hopeless at plays – they are a torture to me at times, but I do love them all the same).
This was a lovely performance, by the way. I loved the sparseness of the stage and the acting was strong and, given the sometimes exaggerated lines characters were given – to make it clear to the audience what they needed to think about – it was acted at just the right level of verisimilitude, or even perhaps a little ‘under-played’, where it could too easily have ended up farce – a real mistake, I think, in terms of the themes and writing overall.
If you can get along to this at the Malt House, I recommend it – otherwise this is an interesting play, and one with lots to think about afterwards.
I think it is best to think of this play from the perspective of parental fear – and so perhaps that is why the focus is on the three mothers. The three mothers have much to worry about in relation to their children. One of the children, of course, never appears in the play – having recently been killed in Vietnam after being called up in the draft. This is the child of the local head master – and, hardly surprisingly, the mother is yet to have gotten over this.
The son of some recently arrived migrants from England is in remission from blood cancer – so is living under a death sentence even though he looks fine. His parents are keeping this a secret from him, but he has been able to guess his fate from what his doctor has and hasn’t said to him. Here we have a family based around ‘protective silences’ – with both parents and the child refusing to say what they know so as the protect the ones they love. There is a lovely bit early in the play where this is made explicit in relation to the trivial – so as to make it clear later the importance of this when the matter is the son dying – this is the holiday they are about to take – and both mother and father speak to the son separately to say they know how little he really wants to go on the holiday and how little he is likely to enjoy it, but if he could just pretend to be having fun for the sake of the other parent, who really needs to believe he is enjoying himself, that would be an act of kindness. This was so touching, even while meant to be funny in terms of the play, I think – for it plays with the multiple layers of truth and of mild dissembling that are meant as acts of love.
The third mother has a daughter and the daughter is clearly interested in the boy with cancer – despite not knowing he has cancer. The mother’s worry isn’t his cancer – she doesn’t know about that either yet – but rather that this boy is clearly not from the same social class as her daughter – and she is of that class of people who are certain that hard work and determination are all that is required to move between classes, and so if you are of one class it is a personal and moral failing. The ever-present fear of pregnancy is unavoidable and the daughter being given a piece of jewellery by the boy following the two young people acting in the school production of A Mid-Summer Night’s Dream together (which is how the play begins) does nothing to allay her parents’ fears.
The notions of time played out here are really interesting – with the middle class parents fixated on the future (and the various permutations of such a future playing out in their fears), the English parents having to live in the immediate present, since their son will soon be dead and they can’t bring themselves to think about that, and the wife of the principal to whom time has more or less stopped – although, perhaps the true cruelty is that it hasn’t stopped at all and each day brings her further and further away from her son.
The three families go off on summer holidays – all go off to various beach locations – the school principal to the Gold Coast (think Florida), the parents with the daughter to a caravan park with their van and the English family to a relatively local beach with a tent that leans against their car. The principal’s wife is under orders to ‘be normal’ and so she spends a lot of time talking to people about their lives. Eventually she is drawn to a young man, just married, who is, presumably, about the same age of her now dead son. Their relationship is discovered by the principal who threatens to have her sent to an asylum so she can have electric shock treatment. What is particularly interesting here is the notion that grief, in its many guises, is something that can be ‘treated’ using technology. Also the notion that because they are living in Australia (a nation with one of the highest standards of living in the world – we are repeatedly told) this means sometimes we must make sacrifices (aka: sending our children off to die in countries we couldn’t previously find on a map) to ensure the continuation of that standard of living. That this might overcome the grief of a mother probably ought to sound bizarre to us – at least, I would like to believe it would.
She runs away from the Gold Coast holiday and ends up on the same beach that the English family are holidaying at – the son and her end up performing a play together – one involving her crippling herself due to the loss of a lover (a ghost, no less) and the ghost saving her at the cost of his own eternal damnation. All of which looks a bit like the power of art over technology as a means of addressing mental anguish.
The middle class family with the daughter also end up on the same beach after a storm wrecks virtually everything at the caravan park. The mother controls everything in the family through a series of complaints about the ineffectualness of both the father and daughter. That this is a game the father plays along with, effectively creating situations (the loss of car keys, the forgetting of presents) that then allow the mother to have something to complain about – is something the daughter hasn’t really understood and therefore something the daughter makes explicit only to be put back in place by both mother and father – again, families are about the unspoken, even if the unspoken isn’t quite as consequential as cancer. I’ve a feeling people will see this scene quite differently to how I’ve read it – seeing the daughter as the speaker of truth in the family – but truth comes onion like.
A doctor has told the young man who is on the cusp of the slide into degeneration and from there onto death that if he wants to ever have sex, now is the time to be getting on with it. So, he asks the daughter of the middle class parents – note, this is the worst of her parents’ fears realised, given that were she to become pregnant there is no question of him marrying her and so on. This scene is interesting for so many reasons – not least that the standard trope here is being played with, for it is generally the young man about to go off to the war who gets to have sex in this way. I’ve never found sex a simple thing – which is a pity, as I’m sure if it were a simple thing it would be much more enjoyable – and so sex proves here as well. Look, you don’t have sex with someone just because they are dying – everyone one is dying, it is the basic human condition, but there is something really troubling about the idea of a doctor telling a young man he should have sex as soon as possible and this being the way the young man finds out he is dying. Something deeply troubling. I think I would rather a doctor just said to me I was going to die than, ‘now would be a good time for you to get a root’.
The play ends with a group of students, presumably the middle class daughter in among them, but I may have missed this, studying the first scene of King Lear – any play that moves from A Mid-Summer’s Night Dream to King Lear probably isn’t going to make you want to sing and dance on the way home – in fact, I found myself choking back tears at the end, Lear does that to me anyway, but here it was particularly poignant (I’m bloody hopeless at plays – they are a torture to me at times, but I do love them all the same).
This was a lovely performance, by the way. I loved the sparseness of the stage and the acting was strong and, given the sometimes exaggerated lines characters were given – to make it clear to the audience what they needed to think about – it was acted at just the right level of verisimilitude, or even perhaps a little ‘under-played’, where it could too easily have ended up farce – a real mistake, I think, in terms of the themes and writing overall.
If you can get along to this at the Malt House, I recommend it – otherwise this is an interesting play, and one with lots to think about afterwards.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 15, 2021
2/5 Stars
THE DISCOVERY OF HOW MUCH I DID NOT LIKE THIS PLAY
(Yay for implementing discovery in this review A++++++)
Seriously, the only reason why someone would pick up this play is by students who are forced to study this in high school. Seriously. My heart goes out to the HSC students studying this play for discovery.
Maybe that's partly the reason why I didn't like "Away" very much. Having to pick apart every quote, every interaction between characters and links to discovery in this text would suck the excitement out of even the most avid reader.
Let's start with the best part about this play:
- The Aussie context made the play applicable, even today. I could understand references and I also enjoy camping and going away (yay for title reference). It was authentically Australian and I can appreciate Gow's knack for staying true to the Aussie culture.
Yet if you want an enthralling, suspenseful read that will keep you on the edge of your seat....then I strongly advise you to skip this one.
Despite the characters being on a path of self-discovery and whatnot, they felt two dimensional and were difficult to relate to. The play itself was too short, particular when there were so many characters. A text is meant to evoke emotion for the reader and connect with the characters but the only thing that connected was my head against a wall.
The play fell flat and after reading it for the HSC, I've since given my copy away.
THE DISCOVERY OF HOW MUCH I DID NOT LIKE THIS PLAY
(Yay for implementing discovery in this review A++++++)
Seriously, the only reason why someone would pick up this play is by students who are forced to study this in high school. Seriously. My heart goes out to the HSC students studying this play for discovery.
Maybe that's partly the reason why I didn't like "Away" very much. Having to pick apart every quote, every interaction between characters and links to discovery in this text would suck the excitement out of even the most avid reader.
Let's start with the best part about this play:
- The Aussie context made the play applicable, even today. I could understand references and I also enjoy camping and going away (yay for title reference). It was authentically Australian and I can appreciate Gow's knack for staying true to the Aussie culture.
Yet if you want an enthralling, suspenseful read that will keep you on the edge of your seat....then I strongly advise you to skip this one.
Despite the characters being on a path of self-discovery and whatnot, they felt two dimensional and were difficult to relate to. The play itself was too short, particular when there were so many characters. A text is meant to evoke emotion for the reader and connect with the characters but the only thing that connected was my head against a wall.
The play fell flat and after reading it for the HSC, I've since given my copy away.
November 13, 2017
not that keen, a bit too confusing for my liking
update: ok now that I've analysed it i can appreciate it a little more but still, i'm not a fan of having to fully analyse a play in order to understand and follow it.
update: ok now that I've analysed it i can appreciate it a little more but still, i'm not a fan of having to fully analyse a play in order to understand and follow it.
November 2, 2017
*read for school*
July 16, 2013
The book litterally drove me crazy. It was annoying to read, and the characters were just awful. However, I did enjoy the ending.
March 2, 2022
Michael Gow has written a great play about class, friendship, race, war and peace, set on a Gold Coast holiday in "Away". Three families get away , the wealthier in a hotel, the poorer camping. Their lives intersect through a Shakepeare play in the last week of school, then sharing the holiday destination. There's a budding cross-class romance, parents grieving a son killed in Vietnam, mental illness and physical illness, all effecting character's behaviour, as well as snobbishness and racism. A terrific Australian play for a big cast, I was lucky to see La Boite's 2021 production, with Roxy MacDonald and Kristen O'Leary, an a European, Aboriginal and Asian cast. Gow blends philosophical dialogue with humour, and the irony is sparkling.
August 6, 2013
Required to study this play for English at school, a more detailed insight into the intentions of Gow and the ideas presented was given. The plot deals with healing and reconciliation, and revolves around three families who have some unique issues of their own. While some relationships were strained, others were becoming detrimental. And as they all go on their respective holidays, they all end up meeting at the end. References and allusions to Shakespeare elevate the meaning Gow is trying to portray. As an Australian play, contextual ideas and Gow's perspective on stereotypes and society are highlighted. It explored deep issues concerning relationships.
May 10, 2024
I’d like to argue that a literal storm washing away personal biases in a play predominantly hinging on class struggles only to return to the status quo of said class system makes no sense and is the kind of “we should all just love each other but I won’t recognise/engage with the unique life experience and sociological background that makes you who you are” plot beat I hate.
*the dramaturgs boo*
*the dramaturgs boo*
February 3, 2020
I quite enjoyed this play. It's picturesquely Australian and its themes of reconciliation and recovery were refreshing to read. Good Australian writing :)
July 23, 2023
I found this play hard to read because I found it boring for the most part. The play also seemed to be just thrown together with the way they revelled things, like Tom's terminal illness.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 18, 2023
we read this for school a while back and i’m counting it🤭
February 26, 2025
Never again…
March 23, 2016
I first read this play in December last year for my theatre studies class, as we were going to be performing it this year. Since then I have probably read it about twenty times, and tonight was the last performance of our production. This play has truly made my TS class a second family. And I don't have words to describe how close to my heart Coral and Roy are, as I directed all their beautiful heart wrenching scenes. I played the role of Miss Latrobe, and out of all the characters I have played in different shows, I don't think I'll miss any as much as the glamorous Miss Latrobe!! This really is a beautiful play, and I am so lucky as to have been able to interpret it for an audience
January 28, 2021
Away is good. It is. Lacking bells and whistles but rock solid in its foundations - the corn flakes of plays. The characters are interesting and have the complexity to hold up the story, the narrative does a good job of weaving together the character's clashes and complications with the wider themes flirts with, different perspectives keep the gears turning and even without notable moments of major confrontation, there's a sense of payoff by the end. That said, I don't find the ending quite sticks the landing narratively speaking. If you can source it, I'd recommend the STC/Malthouse production, which was professionally recorded and is on and off ABC iView. 4/5
August 16, 2020
A well-crafted play that tells of the terrors of going on holidays in Australia before the internet. It’s also really funny, heartbreaking in places, filled with characters that manage to be Australian without being quirky and manages to make a comment on society at both the time the play is set as well as when it was written. The edition I have also has a photo of an actor playing the lead who would direct me in a different play two years after the production he was in was staged.
May 25, 2022
Looking for a new Year 10 play. This is interesting and would be much better watched than read, like most plays really. Interesting take on change and grief around the time of the Vietnam war. No decision yet but would probably work well for this age group.
May 15, 2012
An Australia play! Sometimes my Year 11 students get to explain to me what a particular Aussie word or phrase means.
October 15, 2013
Idk what to say about this one, it was ok? kinda fucked up? Read it for Drama class.
May 3, 2015
I enjoyed reading this play for English Literature. I found it easy to understand. I love how at the end everyone is happy and has learnt from the problems faced in the play.
August 13, 2014
Performing sometime next term for drama :)
Not the most amazing and interesting of plays but has some pretty good characters to play and also many conflicts to resolve!
Not the most amazing and interesting of plays but has some pretty good characters to play and also many conflicts to resolve!
September 25, 2014
Looking forward to teaching this play. Some great themes and a storyline that is very relatable. Would actually like to be in a performance of it myself.
March 16, 2015
Coooooralll
August 15, 2017
I think i didn't like this one.
It had some good moments, but they were few and far between.
I think it tries too hard, missed the mark and fell flat in my opinion.
Too few pages, too big a cast.
It had some good moments, but they were few and far between.
I think it tries too hard, missed the mark and fell flat in my opinion.
Too few pages, too big a cast.
September 11, 2017
I found this to be a little flat for my own liking but would recommend it to lovers of a more contemporary genre.
Read
November 6, 2017HSC prescribed text.
February 25, 2018
HSC prescribed text. What even happened in that story.
December 14, 2017
I liked it. But at the same time I didn’t understand it. Maybe I need to spend more time with it, see it performed, but just a read through on the train didn’t do it too much help
July 21, 2018
Hated HSC text, forced into the syllabus to fulfil the Australian author quota
December 21, 2018
I had to read this play for school. I can't remember how I felt about it then, but I love it now.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 46 reviews