Synopsis
Cosi is set in a psychiatric institution in Melbourne in 1971 during the changing social climate caused mainly by the war in Vietnam. Lewis has recently left Uni and faces the challenge of directing the Mozart opera Cosi Fan Tutte staged in a burnt-out theatre with the patients as cast members. Initially hesitant, he becomes emotionally involved with his patients-cum-actors as his operatic production lurches forward and anti-war protests rage outside. Filled with an over-enthusiastic cast who can’t sing, act or speak Italian, what could possibly go wrong?
‘Nowra has written a terrific play about theatre, madness, illusion, sanity, life; it’s a big, splendidly Australian epic.’