”Cosi” by Louis Nowra

The book Cosi, written by Louis Nowra consisted of being about a play called ‘Cosi Fan Tutte’ which involved madness, illusion, sanity and theatre. This play was set in a mental institution and involved fellow patients to become the extraordinary actors that were finally able to get an involvement to bring them out of their dull shell. Lewis, is the fresh out of university, new director, which gasp’s on the idea that having this role isn’t as easy as he was aware of. Throughout the play, it consists of comedy and sadness that are supplied but past experiences and the way society looks on people.

Louis Nowra, the author, has used sadness and black comedy throughout the play due to wanting the audience to forget about their pre-thought of what mental patients are seen as. This to be seen as seeing the patients for their personality and not for their illness or past tumors. One of the actors, Roy, has shown this by sharing his past childhood too the group and audience. Roy as a child, was abandoned by his mother and also grew up living and changing orphanages. Although Roy had gone through numerous hard tasks during his life, he still managed to be consistently happy which this is what through the audience off. Roy, being the chooser of the play, shows sadness in the making of ‘Cosi Fan Tutte’ when he reveals to Lewis that this play is his way of trying to escape the hurt of his life spent feeling unloved within orphanages and the mental institution. Lewis claimed that “love was a hard concept to define” as he hadn’t really thought about what he saw love as, but had been manipulated by his friends, Nick and Lucy, who both believed that love is not important. Although Lewis and Lucy were involved, due to Lucy not believing that love is important, she started to betray Lewis by sleeping with Nick. And although Lewis knew this, he was still hopeful to believe that that women should be faithful to men and that true love does exist.

As the story has an emotional side, it also endures a comedy side. Doug is an aggressive man who is obsessed with sex, he is a straight up person and is not afraid to say what is on his mind. In parts of the play, Doug’s words are inappropriate but come across as funny and entertaining. In Doug’s childhood, him and his mother weren’t very close. His mother would often like to spend time and look after her cats. So when Doug finally made the decision to make an effort, he thought by lighting her cats on fire, would grab her attention. Merely, it grabbed her attention for the wrong reasons. But once Doug had mentioned this to the fellow cast, Cherry would reply with a remark of ‘Go burn a cat’ so sarcastically get back at Doug’s rude or inappropriate comments to her. Doug likes to play on people’s minds and unleash interrogating questions to Lewis, about his person life which makes Lewis unconfutable. Roy’s unrealistic expectations that a group of mentally ill patients can perform and sing a Mozart opera demonstrates the illusion he has to make something happen. A shocking twist involved Julie, and how she is always interested in and leading on Lewis. To then find out that Julie is a lesbian, it takes a entertaining journey to the courage of her letting it out.