Cosi by Louis Nowra , MTC, REVIEW, May 6 1994

THEATRE

By Melbourne Theatre Company

At MTC Russell Street Theatre until June 1994

Reviewer: Kate Herbert around 6 May 1994

This review was published in The Melbourne Times after 6 May 1994

 

Comedy writers have for years made us laugh at the expense of the afflictions of others. Mental illness is a veritable lolly shop full of gags for Louis Nowra in Cosi.

 

Louis (Christopher Gabardi), an amateur theatre director fresh from the political hotbed of a 1971 university, is thrown to the wolves by a dickhead social worker (Ernie Gray) to direct a cast of nutters in Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte.

 

Nowra cares little for narrative in Cosi, so it is virtually plot-free, but the results are hilarious.

 

While uni students were doing recreational drugs, asylum victims were being subjected to pharmaceuticals and shock treatment. But Nowra knows nothing is sacred in comedy. He's wicked.  Zac, the pianist (Hugh Wayland) crashes head-first onto the keyboard from lithium overload. Doug, a pyromaniac, (Kim Gyngell) sets cats alight. (Don't phone the RSPCA cat-lovers. It's only a play.)

 

The stage is peopled with disordered personalities: an over-eater, a junky, a compulsive-obsessive played with great comic detail by Pamela Rabe, and Henry, a stammering barrister, played sympathetically by Charles Tingwell. The only truly emotional moment is when the withdrawn and inarticulate Henry spits and gasps his anguish about his father, women and traitors.

 

The 'leading man" in this lunatic farce is Roy whose condition is "annoying and supercilious bossiness", portrayed with energy and delight by Barry Otto. He indulges in amateur histrionics and has forced the group to perform Mozart. who suffers even more than Louis.

 

Zac insists on playing Wagner on piano accordion, Louis cuts the arias because no-one can sing and replaces the poisoning with shock treatment for relevance. 

 

Louis' warmth and humanity overcome his need to appease his smug girlfriend and arrogant director pal who condemn him for doing a conservative romance when he should stage Brecht and march in the Moratorium. Louis prefers to help the lunatics to experience something creative (albeit weird). At least they are honest loonies.

 

Nadia Tass's direction has made the most of the hilarity and clown qualities of the characters and dialogue and she takes theatrical risks playing scenes in total darkness but the production lacks pace. The script seems to be careering toward the pay-off: a frenetic, Keystone Cops ending but the sluggish pace makes it anti-climactic.

 

By Kate Herbert