Così
play written by Louis Nowra
Così is a play by Australian playwright Louis Nowra which was first performed in 1992 at the Belvoir St Theatre in Sydney, Australia. Set in a Melbourne mental hospital in 1971, Così is semi-autobiographical, and is the sequel to his previous semi-autobiographical play, Summer of the Aliens.
The play was adapted into the 1996 film Cosi.
Plot summary
Set several years after the events of Summer of the Aliens, Lewis is now in a strained relationship with a bossy woman named Lucy, and in a friendship with political extremist, Nick. Lewis is always desperate for work as he states "I need the money". The venue is a theatre that smells of "burnt wood and mould", the cast are patients with very diverse needs, and the play is Mozart's Così fan tutte. Through working with the patients, Lewis eventually discovers a new side of himself which allows him to become emotionally involved and to value love, while anti-Vietnam war protests erupt in the streets outside.
Characters
Lewis: The director of the production and main character. He is Lucy's boyfriend but later has an affair with Julie, one of the mental patients.
Roy: A manic-depressive with a passion for theatre, especially the play Cosi.
“Così” enters the record as play written by Louis Nowra. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Così, play and written can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Così” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Così, play and written provides the most credible route into that argument.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1836706. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1992, 1971 and 1996.
Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Così” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.