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Homework Help: English: Books, Novels & Plays: Away
by Emily McPherson
The following is a review of the play, AWAY, by Michael Gow.
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 humour, 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 ÔawayÕ by
the sea heals their battered spirits and deepens their sense of going home.
The play, framed by two of ShakespeareÕs works, King Lear and Mid Summer
NightÕs 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 ShakespeareÕs 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 over flow 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, Gow constructs a magical play which deals with
going ÔawayÕ as in a holiday, Vietnam, leaving home, being separated from
family, loneliness, freedom, death, and the afterlife. Every Australian can
relate to this play and learn about the deeper meaning to life.
Homework Help: English: Books, Novels, and Plays
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