‘Some plays are refined over years, the writer chiselling and revising. Others owe their power to having been written in a white heat, but after a long mental gestation period: such is Away. Peter Kingston, Griffin’s Artistic Director at the time, needed something to fill a slot for a show that had fallen through. Gow proposed the idea of Away, then spent three weeks writing ... and he told me recently that “there was virtually no rewriting, in fact the one and only typescript of the play is pretty much what Currency published”.’
In Robin Shall Restore Amends, Hilary Bell presents a contemporary response to a treasured Australian play – a personal and bewitching take on Away by Michael Gow.
Robin Shall Restore Amends is part of Cue the Chorus, a series of ten thought-provoking responses to classic Australian stories. The other titles in the series are:
1. An Ever-Changing Idiom by Alana Valentine – a response to Summer of the Seventeenth Doll by Ray Lawler
2. The Makings of a Man by John Harding – a response to No Sugar by Jack Davis
3. Playing Awkward by Noëlle Janacewska – a response to The Chapel Perilous by Dorothy Hewett
4. Pulling Rabbits Out of Hats by Melissa Reeves – a response to Speaking in Tongues by Andrew Bovell
5. Radiant Women on Radiant Country by Andrea James – a response to Radiance by Louis Nowra
6. Still Waters by Wesley Enoch – a response to The Secret River by Kate Grenville; an adaptation for the stage by Andrew Bovell
7. The Unexpected Feminist by Van Badham – a response to The Removalists by David Williamson
8. What Goes Around Comes Around by Kate Mulvany – a response to Hotel Sorrento by Hannie Rayson
9. A Youth Presumed by Finegan Kruckemeyer – a response to Blackrock by Nick Enright
