Theater review: 'Cosi'

Louis Nowra’s “Cosi,” The Players’ latest production, is a gumbo of Mozart, madness and radical chic. It’s a funny play, but not always funny ha-ha. Along with the laughs, it’s filled with truth — which isn’t always a knee-slapper. We’ll expand on that after the obligatory summary.

The year is 1970. Fresh out of college, Lewis (Tanner Holman) lands a job at a mental institution. Despite his lack of qualifications, they make him an art therapist. His first assignment: direct several inmates in a play in the asylum’s shabby theater. A theatrically obsessed inmate named Roy (Don Walker) pressures Lewis into performing Mozart’s “Cosi Fan Tutti.” (It’s an English translation, because nobody speaks Italian—and a spoken word version, because nobody can sing.) Lewis discovers that life imitates art. In Mozart’s opera, two officers wager that they could trick their fiancées into being unfaithful. Lewis discovers that girlfriend, Lucy, has been unfaithful too—with his best friend, Nick (Quoc Pham), a charismatic radical leftist director. It’s, like, the era of free love. “Fidelity” is such a bourgeois concept—especially with the body count in Vietnam, man. Lewis punches Nick in the nose and puts on the play. It’s a raging success. The pyromaniac burns down the theater a few days later.

Dan Higgs directs this material with the gutsiest choice of all: he takes it seriously. “Cosi” is a comedy in name only. It’s really an ensemble character study where the funny and dark moments intertwine. That’s exactly how he plays it.

Holman’s Lewis is a wide-eyed innocent who’s in over his head. His character reacts more than acts. Like Alice, he’s fallen down the rabbit hole into Wonderland and wondering what’s next. Holman nicely conveys his gob-smacked confusion. Ross Boehringer’s social worker character, Justin, is a well intentioned, feckless bureaucrat. Anna Massey’s Lucy and Pham’s Nick are true believers who never crack a smile. None of these four are playing with a full deck—and they’re the “sane ones.” As to the inmates …

Parker Lawhorne is genuinely menacing as Doug the firebug. Intentionally or not, Lawhorne has perfected the “Kubrick stare”—as seen in Vincent D’Onofrio’s character in “Full Metal Jacket.” Debbi White is funny as Cherry, a switchblade-wielding ball of energy who’s taken a shine to Lewis. Anna Massey plays her junky character as a person who happens to be addicted to junk. It’s a sadly realistic performance—low key, with no telegraphing, Walker’s Roy is wonderfully hyper. Hey, he’s nuts about the theater, right? Enthusiasm, taken out of context, looks like madness. Tom Aposporos is a wreck of a man trapped in stuttering dysfunction—except for when he’s acting. Jenny Walker’s OCD character takes every note of direction literally. She counts her steps — and finds the concept of “real fantasy” disturbing. Joshua Seavey’s piano-playing, overmedicated Zac seems totally out of it — but he remembers to give Lorenzo Da Ponte credit for the opera’s libretto.

So, what’s the method behind this madness? Ken Kesey’s “One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest” is the obvious comparison—but it’s a different animal. The inmates in “Cuckoos” nest were broken spirits under the head nurse’s iron thumb. The inmates here aren’t so intimidated—and many are downright intimidating. They aren’t running the asylum. But nobody’s running them.

Taken out of context, that statement sounds cute. It really isn’t. It’s another way of saying that Lewis is an unqualified twenty-something dealing with dangerous people. Not cute at all. And there’s a reality behind the fiction.

“Cosi” draws from the dark water’s of Nowra’s experience. In 1971, he directed a production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Trial by Jury” at Plenty Mental Hospital in Melbourne, Australia. Nowra’s inmates may be caricatures, but they’re funhouse mirror reflections of real people. And disturbed people can be really disturbing.

So Doug, the twisted fire-starter, isn’t played for giggles. In one scene, he recounts the incident that got him institutionalized—his immolation of his mother’s cats. The audience laughs nervously — until they realize it’s just not funny.

Future audiences should expect some challenging theater — in the literal sense. This is a play about damaged people, after all. It’s entertaining, but it’s not all fun and games. When Nowra gets you laughing, he’s getting you of guard. You have been warned.

But “Cosi” could easily have been a high-concept, comedic romp. Lewis and the inmates would’ve put on Mozart’s love-happy opera and been transformed. Love conquers all, right? Well, no. The playwright tells you the inmates’ fates at the play’s end. The junky dies of an overdose. Roy, the theater-bug, is isolated from the people he irritates. Doug, as noted, burns down the theater. The performance is a happy moment. But it’s not a happy ending. 

Nowra’s methodical madness unfolds against the backdrop of the Vietnam War. Outside the asylum walls, Nick’s been organizing a massive anti-war moratorium. Conveniently, his righteous political cause is a blank check for bad behavior. He’s giving his life to the movement, what difference does it make if he steals Lewis’ girlfriend?

Back in the 1970s, that thinking was as common as the Vietcong flags in college dormitories. In 1992, the memory was still fresh. In 2016, it isn’t. (A few more radio broadcasts and exterior crowd noises outside would’ve brought it back to mind.) But don’t get me wrong …

The playwright was no fan of the Vietnam War. He was no fan of ideologies that told you what to think and excused personal betrayal, either. His lunatics choose love and loyalty. His enlightened radicals don’t. Lewis, like Louis, sides with the inmates. That may sound crazy.

But that’s the whole point.