Changing the ending with Michael Gow

MICHAEL GOW:

I directed the play at the Sydney Theatre Company somewhere in the '90s, and I changed the ending of the play, which caused a lot of… anger. When a play is set for study, it's really difficult to say, 'Oh, actually, maybe that wasn't right'. But I've left it open and people can choose whichever one they do, but, in a sense… it felt, to me, like Tom's function is over once the play he does with Coral is finished and maybe the last scene is some time later and he's, in fact, dead. And maybe the whole play is his dream… of what his ideal summer would have been if he could have changed those people's lives. And sometimes in productions… it's Meg that says the last line, quoting the speech from the beginning of King Lear. But whichever way you do it, it is very much about the fact that until you'd come to accept those big issues in life, you're ready enough to move ahead.

TOM TILLEY:

It's fascinating, and what you're talking about there sort of really goes to the heart of the style of the play as well, that it jolts around from time and place, and it's fantastical and potentially a dream sequence, but it's open to interpretation. What is it that you love about breaking away from a simple, more linear, naturalistic kind of work?

MICHAEL GOW:

Same reason I love Shakespeare — you can do anything. You can just walk on stage and say, 'So, we're in France,' and you're in France, and I love that kind of magic that Shakespeare had available to him.