Michael Gow’s Away is something of a
mainstay on the high school syllabus, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a
student who hasn’t studied it (or at the very least, heard of it), sometime in
the past fifteen years or so. Set in the late 1960s, it is a coming-of-age
story on both a personal level as well as a cultural and societal level; the
Vietnam War is in full-force, conscription is very much a reality, Indigenous Australians
were constitutionally recognised, and the women’s rights movement was swiftly gaining
momentum. Produced by Sport for Jove
in the play’s thirtieth-anniversary year, Gow’s Away
here feels old, starts to show its age and, despite some nuanced moments, ultimately
fails to live up to its status as a classic.
Essentially a
series of vignettes – although there is a narrative progression which runs
throughout – Gow’s play follows three families over their Christmas holidays, and
details in soft-focus their fears, loves, losses, dreams, and the hurdles they
must overcome. Performed in the Seymour
Centre’s vast York Theatre, something of Gow’s intimacy is lost even if the
humanity at the heart of the story remains.
