CHARACTER QUOTES
“I can’t stand real things.”
Zac
The characters perform Mozart's Così Fan Tutte inside Nowra's Così. This is an example of...
metatheatre / a play-within-a-play
The setting of the play, where most of the action takes place.
Burnt-out theatre... symbolises the neglect and marginalisation experienced by the patients.
The political issue dominating Australian society and Lewis's friends' activism is this war.
Vietnam War
Lewis initially believes this is less important than political issues, but his attitude changes throughout the play.
Love
“Love is not so important nowadays.”
Lewis
Lewis eventually addresses the audience directly and reveals information about what happens to the theatre after the performance. This breaks the...
fourth wall
The theatre becomes a place where the patients can create, perform and form relationships. Therefore, it can also symbolise...
hope / transformation / human connection
Nowra draws partly on his own experiences, making Così a work that can be described as...
semi-autobiographical
What does the opera's title roughly translate to?
Women are like that - they're supposed fickleness and lack of fidelity
This character argues that the patients are unsuitable performers and dismisses them with the attitude that “mad actors” are bad enough.
Nick
The stage going dark during an important scene is an example of this theatrical element, which also creates opportunities for characters to behave differently from when they can be seen.
lighting / blackout
The contrast between darkness and illumination can symbolise ignorance versus...
understanding / insight (Lewis begins metaphorically "in the dark" about the patients but develops greater empathy and understanding).
One major contextual attitude Nowra challenges is the tendency to separate people into simplistic categories of "normal" and...
insane / mad
Lewis's character arc demonstrates what major change?
Development of empathy and a rejection of simplistic assumptions about sanity.
“Without love, the world wouldn’t mean as much.”
Roy
Nowra repeatedly places supposedly "sane" characters alongside supposedly "insane" characters whose behaviour can actually appear more rational or insightful.
Juxtaposition
The opera itself symbolises the play's central concern with this concept, while also allowing Nowra to question whether people can genuinely remain faithful.
Love and fidelity
The play's setting and characters reflect the transition away from large psychiatric institutions and towards what alternative mental health approach?
Community-based mental health care.
What major binary does Nowra challenge?
Sanity vs Insanity
"Men are flesh and blood. Women are flesh and blood too".
Julie
The patients rehearse an opera about fidelity while their own relationships increasingly demonstrate betrayal, attraction and conflicting ideas about love.
Dramatic Irony
The audience recognises the parallels between the opera and the characters' real lives.
The patients' performance demonstrates that theatre can provide people with this, even when society has marginalised them.
A sense of purpose / enjoyment and appreciation of the arts / connection / dignity
Rather than simply presenting the patients as passive recipients of treatment, Nowra gives them this, allowing them to create, perform and express themselves.
voice / agency / individuality / freedom / autonomy
Two major themes are sanity and fidelity. Who says the following lines:
A). "Everyone is mad.”
B). "You can't trust anyone".
A. Roy
B. Doug