Produce Is Called ‘away'

Welcome cast, I'd just like to say before we get started that I am very thankful for you all coming here today to join me in producing this fantastic play.

As you all know the play we are about to produce is called ‘Away' written by the Australian playwright Michael Gow and is set in the 1960's. It's about three families who go on holidays, each to different destinations and all three families have or are experiencing different Australian experiences. The experiences they each have encountered are all significant events that have sculpted Australia's history and will likely touch the hearts of many of the audience.

The characters include Gwen and Jim who have experienced the great depression and Vic and Harry who are English immigrants.

But today the family we will be focusing on is a married couple Roy and Coral who have experienced the loss of their son in the Vietnam War. Coral is a very troubled woman and is suffering depression from the loss of her son. Her husband Roy is obviously suffering too but is trying to stay strong so that he can help Coral get back to her normal self as she has gone a little bit ‘crazy' and simultaneously she has lost her social identity. He decides to take her on this wonderful cruise and with a bit of time away he hopes that Coral will find herself and come back to her normal senses.

So today's scene we are going to cover is Scene 3 where Coral and Rick, a younger man she has met on the ship, are alone on the rooftop late at night. This is a key scene in the play where the relationship between Coral and Rick is exposed to her husband and Roy realizes that his wife needs professional help and not just his help. The impact of the Vietnam War on Coral and Roy's life affects everything in their daily life.

To get a feel for the mood of this scene I will re-cap some of the events that have led up to this scene. Coral has been trying hard to communicate with everyone she meets on the ship finding secret unhappiness in many of the characters past. This is shown in the scene were she makes Leonie feel very uncomfortable as she attacks her with a heap of questions about her personal life. Most of the people on