Playwright’s Biography

MICHAEL GOW has extensive writing credits for stage, screen and radio. His best known play is the multi-award winning Away, a modern classic of Australian Theatre and one of the most performed Australian plays. Others include Toy Symphony, The Kid, On Top of the World, Europe, 1841, The Fortunes of Richard Mahony, Live Acts on Stage and award-winners Furious and Sweet Phoebe.

For television he has written the mini-series Eden’s Lost, directed by Neil Armfield, and Art’n’Life. He also adapted his play Europe for radio and wrote The Astronaut’s Wife for ABC Radio.

His awards include two NSW Premier’s Literary Awards (for Away and Sweet Phoebe); two Sydney Theatre Critics Circle Awards (Away and Furious); the Australian Writer’s Guild Major Award for Writing and for Best Play (Away), a Green Room Award (Away) an AFI Award for best Mini-Series (Eden’s Lost). He is also a noted director, and was Artistic Director of Queensland Theatre Company for many years.

Introduction

May-Brit Akerholt

Away is set in the summer of 1967–68. Australia was a young nation in the sense that 40% of the population was under 21. By 1968 more than 8000 Australians were fighting in Vietnam and young people were becoming more politically aware. The play ends at the beginning of that year; a ‘holiday’ is over and around the world 1968 becomes a watershed. Students stage revolts in Paris, Germany and around the United States and focus attention on the bitter debates and splits in Western Society. Censorship in theatre and literature undergoes radical changes. In Australia, plays with four letter words were still banned in most states and actors risked going to jail for using obscene language. In 1966 the longest running show in Sydney was the revue A Cup of Tea, A Bex and a Good Lie Down at the Phillip Street Theatre. By the aquarian generation in 1969 Hair had taken over. The holiday was indeed over for Australia.