Cosi
by Louis Nowra
State Theatre Company
with the Red Shed
Reviewed by Murray Bramwell
The State Theatre Company in collaboration with the Red Shed Company is combating the winter blues with Louis Nowra’s Cosi, a comedy about a young man’s adventures directing a production of Cosi Fan Tutti with a cast of patients from a mental institution. The situation and theme have plenty of echoes – from Marat Sade and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest to recent comedies like Stepping Out, Chorus of Disapproval and The Popular Mechanicals. The idea of a play about the rehearsal and presentation of a play is, of course, squarely embedded in the Tragical Comedy of Pyramus and Thisbe in Shakespeare’s Dream. Cosi, similarly is full of gags about the theatre.
The young man in question is Lewis. “There is no doubt,” writes Nowra, “that but for a vowel, (he) is in many respects me.” The show he directed in 1970 was Trial by Jury, the patients sang pop songs of the day and the music was supplied by Nowra on clarinet. “I vividly remember two things,” recalls the playwright, “how the shyer members of the cast blossomed on the night and the behaviour of a university student leader who I had invited.” The student made fun of the patients and their efforts. Nowra reflects – “It was a thoughtless ungenerous act and it is no wonder he is now an MP (Labor. Special Area: social issues)” Despite his intention to “write something in a lighter vein with the darker core hidden by a benign attitude to the past” the glib cynicism of his remark about the MP suggests something unresolved in Nowra’s purpose that for me detracts from enjoyment of the play.
Had the play focused only on the comic vicissitudes of Lewis directing the play then Cosi would have plainly stated its task of providing tender (for some), sentimental (for others) amusement. Making the staging of the play in 1970 so significant that Lewis has to choose between directing the production or joining the National Vietnam Moratorium march creates what is known in show business as a false dichotomy. I have no trouble believing that Nowra’s student chum was an unpleasant shit but to make him the identikit radical – directing Brecht, caddishly seducing Lewis girlfriend, deriding the gentle humanism of the theatre project- is reductionist and gratuitous. This is not a benign view of the past, it is a falsification. If the Moratorium movement was only made up of heartless, lecherous Brecht directors we’d still be in Danang. Yet again the social and political significance of the 1960s is reduced to the level of the Electric Prunes and flared trousers.
For this production Simon Phillips has assembled an able cast of State regulars and actors from the Red Shed Company. Philip Holder is excellent in the key role of Roy, a dreamer and a theatrical egotist to rival even Bottom’s self-appraisal. Of course he gets stage fright and of course in the little-engine- that-could self-improvement ethos of the play he comes through. But if Nowra’s characterisation is simplistic Holder brings a comic energy which carries it off.
Sally Hildyard is memorable as Ruth, the theatre sceptic endeavouring to suspend her own if not other’s disbelief. As Julie, Helen Buday manages to find nuance in what is mostly stereotypic writing while Nicholas Hope gives a suitably edgy performance as the arsonist, Doug. Gina Zoia is lively as Cherry and Andrew Donovan appropriately comatose as Zac. Don Barker does well as Henry in what is one of the most convincing scenes of conflict in the play. As Lewis, Luciano Martucci seems to have two switches, one for anxious the other for uneasy. Nick Pelomis does considerably better as that nasty student type.
Shaun Gurton’s design is an excellent facsimile of a half-torched prosc arch theatre. The Space is used well, Phillips’ direction is tight and the acting bright. Ian McDonald’s collage soundtrack samples Mozart with sixties pop but like the play itself it tries to evoke more than it can sustain.
Finally I am perplexed by Cosi. In parts it is clever, funny and touching but it is also, despite its autobiographical authenticity, derivative and superficial. When it focuses on Roy’s dream of making Mozart live – “without this the world wouldn’t be the same, it would break” – we all shed a warm tear for R.D. Laing and the regenerative power of art. But when Nowra tries to catch a zeitgeist in his sweep he takes on too many targets and ends up missing the mark.
The Adelaide Review, No. 117, August, 1993, p.37.