COSI

The time is 1971. The play is set in a Melbourne mental institution. There is a backdrop of social unrest to the play. In 1971 the Vietnam War had been going for nearly ten years (since 1962) and Australians had had enough of it all. Another important element to the historical background to the play is that people’s attitudes towards the mentally ill in the 1960s and 1970s were predominantly negative. The physical setting of the play is “A burnt out theatre” with “a bit of a hole” in the roof and some problems with the wiring. The physical dereliction of the theatre represents, on one level, the attitudes people have towards the mentally ill – neglectful – and where the mentally ill find themselves in society – on the edge, ignored. Cosi is named after the opera Cosi Fan Tutte which Lewis helps the members of the mental institution put on. The narrative structure of the play parallels the structure of the opera. A similar storyline unfolds in Cosi.