When life presents us with change, we can feel threatened. It's only afterwards that we realise with change comes opportunity".
Change can occur in many different ways. Some people argue that change can only occur if the individual themselves wants to change and they work at it. Other people say that change can't happen over night, that it takes time. Finally there are those that believe in order to change there needs to be a catalyst. Some sort of circumstance that forces you to change or someone who helps you to change.
As humans we are creatures of habit, that meaning we do not like to change. Change can make us feel threatened there for making it more likely for us, as human beings, to resist that change and fight it. It is only after life presents us with the situation of change that we realise the opportunities we could have just missed out on.
The characters in "Away" written by Michael Gow, "10 things I hate about you", "The Door" written by Miroslav Holub, and the article written by Jeff Allen are all faced with the prospect of change and in turn faced with opportunity.
"Away" is set to the background of the post-war baby boom in Australia. At the same time Australians were preoccupied with Vietnam and the divisions within society. Gow uses elegant simplicity and a finely tuned sense of humour to follow three very different families on their individual family holidays up the coast. Th holidays are taken to celebrate the New Year during the summer of 1967-68. Gow uses these journeys to show the spiritual quests the families undertake as result of life presenting them with change.
"Away" is a play of discovery, loss and reconciliation. .
Coral and Roy are sitting at the top of the social ladder. As they learn to deal with the loss of their son they both have to deal with the idea they also might loose each other as Coral finds it had coming back to the reality that their son died in the Vietnam War.
