Theatre Review

Eleanor Pearson
22 March 2016

Far and Away, A Difficult Path to Self-Realisation

In 1985 Michael Gow wrote what was to become one of Australia’s most widely produced plays, Away. Set during the summer of 1967/68, in a beachside holiday town, three ostensibly very different families find themselves drawn together, first by circumstances, and later by personal grief.
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Father-daughter heart to heart: Claire Giuffre and Dimitri Armatas
In Lane Cove Theatre Company’s production, director Peter Farmer asked his cast to take risks, and they have done so.

​With an ensemble cast of larger-than-life 1960s characters, there’s the danger of taking the characterisations too far. Many of the characters are obvious stereotypes, with the exception of Tom (William Burke).
​By the end of Act Two, however, the characters are all a little more real, having achieved a shift in awareness.
We first encounter Tom, a 17 year-old, secretly living with a frightening cancer prognosis, when he plays Puck in the school play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. As Tom utters the lines:
“Give me your hands, if we be friends, 
​And Robin shall restore amends.”

Away

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Rowena McNicol as Coral
​He is in fact foreshadowing his own part in the unravelling of the main play, as both a catalyst for change and a restorer of harmony. (Gow’s artistry doesn’t become fully apparent until the end of the play!) But what is evident from the beginning is that Tom is nursing grief (both his parents’ and his own). 
Later Tom also supports his headmaster’s wife, Coral (played with ethereal beauty and whimsy by Rowena McNicol), through her grief over the death of her son, a draftee in the Vietnam War.
​Burke carries this pivotal role, with a mixture of old-fashioned bravado, and a maturity that makes you care about Tom’s fate.
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If Away is about ‘unpacking’ grief, it is also about celebrating life. When a storm rocks the holidaymakers, it seems the family with the most to lose, survives, losing the least, in a material sense.
In the wake of the storm, Tom’s parents, Harry (Trent Gardiner) and Vic (Nicola Read) have found true beauty in their natural surrounds. It takes a little more for the family of Tom’s girlfriend, Meg (Claire Giuffre) to appreciate what they have got, but when Meg’s controlling mother, Gwen (Katherine Stewart) finally becomes self-aware, the transformation is palpable.
In the context of the life events being faced by Gow’s ensemble, Shakespearean poetry sits readily side by side with the Australian vernacular that brings this play to life.
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​It’s also good to hear the music of Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe as a backdrop to this iconic Australian production!

Away plays until April 9, 2016
Lane Cove Theatre Company  
Season:  18 March - 9 April
Address:  St Aidans Hall, 1 Christina Street, Longueville NSW 2066
See the Preview for Away Here