Cosi Louis Riley Character Analysis
The 1992 comedic play ‘Cosi’, written by Australian prolific writer, Louis Nowra, is a play set in 1971 at a mental institution situated in Melbourne. The central protagonist, Lewis Riley, a young inexperienced director, endeavours to direct the inmates in a performance of Mozart’s opera, ‘Cosi Fan Tutte.’ Throughout ‘Cosi’, Nowra displays characters that are characterised as normal, but display rare various degrees of “insanity”. Over the course of the play, the playwright has encouraged his audience to question and understand the meaning of mental illness through the characters. Lewis encounters a journey where his views on the mentally ill change for the better, as the inmates, are portrayed in all their imperfections and the black comic
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Nowra wants to show his audience as a society that the characters as inmates are just ordinary people, as he shows through mirroring himself, as Lewis, showing his views and beliefs towards the mentally ill. Having had experience with mental illness plays a large role in his writing of “Cosi” as he understands the concept of mental illness and has his strong views towards the subject, as both of his grandmothers were placed in institutions as they displayed signs of “madness”. Even though his grandmothers went “mad”, at the end of the day they are still the same person just damaged inside and they are “still [his] grandmother[s]”. Nowra used his grandmother’s madness through Lewis as his “grandmother went mad” as well, and he “[pretended] to be his father.” Nowra had experience with mental institutions and the madness of his grandmothers gave him, “intense interest” on the subject. The story about Lewis going to help inmates at an institution and direct them in a theatre performance is based on Nowra’s life when he was asked to do theatre with mental patients and direct a play called ‘Trial by Jury’. His understanding, experience and knowledge of mental illness supports the play’s plot and characters and help suggest that maybe the characters are normal and the views and treatment should be
Nowra wants to show his audience as a society that the characters as inmates are just ordinary people, as he shows through mirroring himself, as Lewis, showing his views and beliefs towards the mentally ill. Having had experience with mental illness plays a large role in his writing of “Cosi” as he understands the concept of mental illness and has his strong views towards the subject, as both of his grandmothers were placed in institutions as they displayed signs of “madness”. Even though his grandmothers went “mad”, at the end of the day they are still the same person just damaged inside and they are “still [his] grandmother[s]”. Nowra used his grandmother’s madness through Lewis as his “grandmother went mad” as well, and he “[pretended] to be his father.” Nowra had experience with mental institutions and the madness of his grandmothers gave him, “intense interest” on the subject. The story about Lewis going to help inmates at an institution and direct them in a theatre performance is based on Nowra’s life when he was asked to do theatre with mental patients and direct a play called ‘Trial by Jury’. His understanding, experience and knowledge of mental illness supports the play’s plot and characters and help suggest that maybe the characters are normal and the views and treatment should be