The recreation we seek from a holiday is the restoration of our spiritual and physical energies, our life forces. Tom, Harry and Vic are arguably the only characters who ‘don’t look forward’ (Harry, IV i). They live resolutely in the present, the only time they have as a family under the threat to Tom’s health. The remaining characters, with the exception of Meg, are either ‘holding back’. ‘keeping in’ or ‘hanging on to’ the past, which is a kind of death; just as the future, with the threat of loss and abandonment appears also to be a kind of death. The future is the unknown and to embrace it requires a letting go of whatever it is that binds us to the past. To do this is to be free. To hang on is to be asleep (‘like in a dream’: Rick III iii). To be awake is the way to face reality: it then becomes an easy thing to let go. Thus a way can become the way. In its many ways, Away is an affirmation of these basic human needs.

The structure of the play reinforces these themes and in this way coheres with content, which is I believe a measure of art. The play begins indoors, within the confines of small domestic interiors. The first scenes away open out a little – a Surfer’s Paradise hotel ballroom, a crowded ‘caravan city’, the roof top of the hotel. The end of Act III finds us at a beach, the beach of Tom, Harry and Vic, and releases us into a vast open space – endless sand, vaulted sky, a place to relish freedom. We never again retreat indoors. The final scene of the play, again set outdoors, brings us full circle as Tom and his classmates undertake their first reading of their new text King Lear. The last lines exploit dramatic irony in masterful poignancy as Tom and we the audience reel from his words, while his friends read on unwittingly.

Tom is central to these themes. Imbued with a sense of his own mortality, he is inspired despite his pain to lead others out of theirs. Puck-like, he is the play’s protagonist, mentor, engineer, lifeline, and radiance. He is the catalyst to the situation and its salvation. The play gains accordingly by being delightfully funny, distinctly resonant, and deeply moving.

Sydney, April 1988

‘What country, friends, is this?’

Twelfth Night, Act I, sc ii.

‘I have done nothing but in care of thee,

Of thee, my dear one.’

The Tempest, Act I, sc.ii.

First Production

Away was first performed by the Griffin Theatre Company on 7 January 1986 at the Stables Theatre, Sydney, with the following cast:

Campers, hotel guests, fairies etc. were played by the company.

Directed by Peter Kingston

Designed by Robert Kemp