Louis Nowra’s Cosi is a semi auto-biographical play based on the events of 1971. Based in a Melbourne mental institution, Cosi juxtapositions the audience to think of what is important and of value in their lives. Nowra opens his play for interpretations and by using the concept of a play within a play he allows readers to explore the main ideas. Cosi is a drama about a freshly graduated university director, Lewis who chooses to gain experience by directing a play with mental patients. Beaten by the enthusisiam of one of his patients, Roy, they are drawn into performing Cosi Fan Tutte, a play written by Mozart. Mozart’s play is used to relate the central themes of Cosi which include love and fidelity, war and politics.
Cosi Fan Tutte is a play about testing the fidelity of women, or as Cherry describes it, “another battle of the sexes.” Cosi Fan Tutte is Italian for “women are like that.” Through the characters in the novel, Nowra demonstrates his idea that women and men “are like that.” When Lewis finds out that Lucy, his girlfriend has been sleeping with his friend Nick, he describes “women’s constancy is like the Arabian Phoenix…everyone swears it exists, but no one has seen it.” While comparing Lucy to the Arabian Phoenix, Lewis still realizes that it is the “necessity” of women’s heart to change and though “some people may call it a sin,” Lewis essential does not think it is as he believes that both men and women can have a change of heart. Whilst Cosi Fan Tutte displays women as being dishonest and unfaithful, it still teaches that it is necessary for women to change their heart as they search for their true love. Similarly, as Cosi Fan Tutte reflects and collaborates with the idea of Cosi, Cosi shows that men can also have a change of heart. As Lewis changes, he finds that he is not in love with Lucy as he had always “mistaken lust for love.” Lewis distances himself from Lucy as he begins to fall in love with Julie, a drug dependant patient. Nowra shows that though women are described as the “Arabian Phoenix,” men are also like that.
Nowra uses the plot of Cosi Fan Tutte to explore his main idea relating to war. In the plot of Mozart’s play, the two male character “pretend to go to war.” Cosi Fan Tutte’s themes, relating love with war, centralizes Cosi’s idea that people “should make love, not war.” While most people forgot about the importance of love, Nowra’s drama was an attempt to remind people that love is important in society. Nick and Lucy, radicalists who are also friends with Lewis believe that at times of war people don’t “give it fuck about love” but Lewis responds “without love the world wouldn’t mean much.” Nowra proves that though war is controversial and tragic, love is just as important. Though love creates conflict, it is often worth fighting for. Nowra’s attempt to remind people that love is important is made apparent when Lewis is convinced into doing a play that is “not so important nowadays” because it is based on love and fidelity. By agreeing to this choice, Lewis was separated from his friends Lucy and Nick. His friends think that “love is icky” and “the last gasp of bougareious romanticism.” The main theme in Mozart’s piece is love and fidelity whilst the main theme in Nowra’s play is that love is important. While Lewis is changed by the mental patient’s to like Cosi Fan Tutte while his friends “cannot believe” that he is doing a play about love when people are starving and dying. Cosi shows that people who accept love as being important are the people who truly care about the world rather then those who do not believe that love is necessary for humankind to thrive.
Cosi is a play which features a play, Cosi Fan Tutte. Nowra uses the opera to explore the issues relating to 1971. Based on his own life, Nowra resurrects the event of 1971 as he attempts to remind people of the controversy of remembering that love is important in any circumstance by incorporating the themes based in Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte.
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