Brisbane review - Away: thought provoking and sensitive

By Lilian Harrington

Production: Away

Playwright: Michael Gow

Company: Villanova Players

Director: Helen Ekundayo

Location: Ron Hurley Theatre 28 Tallowood  Street, Seven Hills, Qld. 4170

Season: 14-23 June

Bookings: Try booking

Away, by Australian playwright Michael Gow , has become one of Australia’s most frequently produced and studied local plays, because it is different and sends a strong message.

Set in 1967/8, it tells the story of three internally conflicted couples, (each  representing  different parts of society), who come together as a result of a summer storm, while on their Christmas holidays.

Gow has explored self- discovery and change in Away, and he has highlighted themes of loss, grief, conflict, mental illness, and death. He uses symbolic images to describe his characters, such as the moth, the spider, and the heal- all, because they represent symbols of death and destruction; he has contrasted these ideas with reconciliation and the healing powers of love and compassion, which finally win through.

Under the direction of Helen Ekundayo, Villanova Players,  have made a sound attempt to capture the complexities of Gow’s text. It features a very mixed cast of Leads and Ensemble players, who hero the action.  Key ideas and themes are often expressed through the eyes of mystics or youth and Gow has used the Shakespearian idea of fairies, to highlight images of the storm, comedic interludes with the campers, and dance with the Ensemble, to express his message in a visual format. For example, the play opens with a scene from a Shakespearian play ‘Mid- Summer Night’s Dream’, staged at the Centre School, with students Tom, (Thomas Wood), and Meg, (Emily Summer), and we meet Roy, (Brent Schon), the Principal , who has recently lost his own son in Vietnam, and is still coping with this loss, along with his grieving wife Coral (Meagan Lawson).

In the 1960’s, Australians held different attitudes, values and beliefs, to those seen today. Many  serious  issues  were ignored e.g. post-traumatic stress families suffered following the Vietnam War, and certain health issues were not spoken about openly by the family, so matters that we now discuss and deal with today, were repressed or hidden.  In order to highlight this, the designer Brent Schon, has built a clever minimalist stage set, and Desley Nichols and Lia Surrentino, have provided colourful and stylish period costumes, to compliment the action, along with relevant overhead images from the technical crew.

Away places emphasis on the messages coming from the characters and their actions. This production was very paced and stylised in more of a 60’s shape,  complimented  by  the work of the Ensemble , which  played  an important role in providing a visual statement, along with contrasting younger characters  Meg and Tom who provided a teenage perspective of events and relationships.

Coral represented the writer’s intention very convincingly. Lawson played the grieving wife and mother, who had become mentally ill and dislodged, as a result of losing her son in Vietnam. She is forced to keep up appearances as the principal’s wife, but she finally escapes when on holiday, reinventing herself as a version of Kim Novak. She seeks consolation with the newly married Nick, (Harley Rutherford), and later, she participates in a Holiday Campers Concert with Tom, who is coming to terms with his leukaemia. Lawson showed depth of character and believability as she realised how the power of love can lead to reconciliation and healing. This production of Away is a thought provoking drama, which carries sensitive messages, still relevant to a modern day audience.