Tom
Tom is the child of Vic and Harry, two English immigrants to Australia. He attends the school run by headmaster Roy and becomes interested in Meg after acting with her in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Importantly, Tom knows that he is dying of leukemia, despite his family not telling him anything about it. One of the central conflicts of the play thus lies in Tom's family being determined to have a good holiday—since it might be their very last together—despite Tom's desire to not placidly conform to his parent's expectations. Tom also becomes a central vehicle by which the play explores the tensions between youth, old age, and death.
Roy
Roy is the headmaster of the central school, and he and his wife Coral had a son that died in the Vietnam War. Ever since their son died, Roy and Coral's marriage has been falling apart, with Coral growing despondent and manic and Roy struggling to keep her in touch with mainstream and polite society. Unless they start to work together, Roy believes, their marriage could fall apart over the holiday season. When Coral cheats on Roy at their Gold Coast hotel, however, Roy threatens her with electroshock therapy, causing her to flee to the beach where Tom and his family are. At the play's end, however, he and Coral reconcile over some shells and leave happily together.
Coral
Coral is the wife of Roy, with whom she is having marital problems. Though these issues are rooted in the loss of their son in the Vietnam War, Coral is especially troubled by the way her husband tries to rationalize their son's loss. Roy tells her that their son's death was a necessary precondition to enjoy the materially rich life that they have in Australia, but Coral does not necessarily believe this. On her holiday, she picks out the flaws in other couples with ease and falls in with a newlywed named Rick, who she has a brief fling with. After Roy threatens her, however, she flees to a beach, where she puts on a play with Tom and briefly lives out her fantasies of independence and creative fulfillment. At the play's end, she and Roy finally reconcile.
Meg
Meg is the daughter of Gwen and Jim. She befriends Tom when they meet each other while both performing in A Midsummer Night's Dream at their school. She and Tom become close and share mutual interests, but problems arrive when Meg's parents reveal their class prejudice against Vic and Harry, Tom's parents. Later, when Gwen is angry with her husband about gifts being left at home, Meg scolds her mother and accuses her of intentionally making others miserable. When she encounters Tom at the beach at the play's end, he attempts to proposition her, which fails. He does, however, tell her about his illness, which makes her upset and sad for him.
Gwen
Gwen, Meg's mother, is the wife of Jim. She is more or less always cranky, and the source of her upset lies in her unrealistic expectations of what her life ought to be like. Because she experienced economic depression and fought her way to wealth and opportunity, she feels that relaxing for even one second or letting even one thing fall through the cracks could be the end of her. This is the reason that she forbids Meg from seeing Tom at the play's beginning, and it is the reason she breaks down over others' lack of ambition towards the play's end. She is also addicted to Bex, a household aspirin/headache medication.
Jim
Jim is the father of Meg and the husband of Gwen. Gwen accuses him of having forgotten their Christmas gifts at home, but he insists that he did not do so intentionally and only wanted to have the gifts be a surprise by hiding them in ordinary packaging. In moments of clarity, he tells Meg more about Gwen and the causes of her neuroses.
Vic and Harry
Vic and Harry are Tom's parents, blue-collar factory workers who have immigrated from England. They have not been in Australia for very long, but intend to see more of it with their terminally ill son Tom over the holiday. Because they know their son is dying, they attempt constantly to put him on a pedestal and provide him with the ideal life; however, Tom's knowledge of his condition means that he sees through these efforts as palliative. As a result, Tom often challenges his parents and slightly upsets the perfection and idealism that they pursue for their son.
Leonie
Leonie is a woman staying at the same Gold Coast hotel as Coral and Roy. In Act 3, while Roy is away, Coral approaches Leonie in the ballroom of the hotel and pressures her to talk about herself. Coral feels that Leonie is in trouble, but Leonie rejects this assumption and tries to get away from Coral. Eventually, Leonie snaps and reveals that her husband has cheated on her, and that she is very angry about it. In Coral's mind, interacting with people like Leonie shows that she is recovering from her aloof and depressed mindset, but in reality, Leonie's presence in the play shows that Coral has not yet fully healed, and is in fact still obsessed with tragedy (albeit the tragedy of others).
Rick
Rick is a young man honeymooning at the same hotel as Coral and Rick. In Act 3, after a chance encounter with Coral, the two become involved behind the backs of their respective spouses. Rick likes Coral because she allows him to talk through his doubts about the idealism of married life, and Coral likes Rick because his youth reminds her both of her own son and of a bygone era for herself. Rick's relationship with Coral ends, however, when Roy discovers them together on the rooftop on New Year's Eve and forces Rick away.
Miss Latrobe
Miss Latrobe is the drama teacher at the school where Roy is headmaster. At the beginning of the play, it is mentioned that she is responsible for the production of A Midsummer Night's Dream put on in Act 1. At the play's end, she leads the schoolchildren in a reading of King Lear. Before she does so, however, she summarizes the themes of Lear in a way that also sheds light on the key themes and dynamics inherent within Away itself. Since she is responsible for the drama present at the play's beginning and end, she might be thought of as a very subtle kind of stage manager figure (albeit one who appears only once in the play).
