As the lights go down, the opening chords of Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture hang delicately in the air. And then as the skittering music swells and dances, the cast of Away appear, costumed like characters from Shakespeare’s comedy. Performing a high-speed, masque-like zip through the play, Tom (Liam Nunan) then steps to the front of the stage to deliver Puck’s final speech – the lines, which open Michael Gow’s Away.

^{The cast of Sydney Theatre Company’s Away. © Prudence Upton}

It’s a marvellous beginning to Matthew Lutton’s new production of the much-loved play – one of the most popular in the Australian canon. Framed by Shakespeare, Away begins with a high school production of the Dream and ends with words from King Lear, while other Shakespearean references (The Tempest, As You Like It) resonate.

Away premiered at Sydney’s intimate Stables Theatre in 1986 to a rapturous response and quickly sold out. Richard Wherrett directed a production for Sydney Theatre Company in the larger Sydney Opera House Drama Theatre the following year, and there have been numerous productions since.

Set over Christmas 1967, three families go away for a summer holiday...