It is summer, 1967, and three families head for the coast to
get away, to move on, to change. Set against the backdrop of an Australia recovering from the Vietnam War, and wrestling with social upheaval, this production of one of Australia’s greatest classics pits the internal conflict of family life against the struggle of a country shaping its indeterminate future.
A triptych of glorious mothers—one recovering from the loss
of a child, one who fears the same for her own, and one learning to let go—are each determined to take this holiday as a restful time of rejuvenation.
Taking up playwright Michael Gow’s challenge to break apart the rules of theatre, Matthew Lutton’s production unleashes the full theatricality of the text; intimacy gives way to the epic, and suburbia
is replaced with the dark spectacle of a tempest. As the pressure of family secrets gather into a storm and break, each mother and each family feels their way towards new, more hopeful ground....
