Cosi

The play Cosi tells a tale of protagonist Lewis and his struggles with running a showing of the play Cosi Fan Tutte, with patients from a mental asylum. The characters involved in the play as well as Lewis himself experience there own battles and have there own opinions on love and the idea of free love. Cosi Fan Tutte also based on love is aims to prove women can’t be trusted that fidelity is something they all can’t be trusted to do. ‘This Cosi condones the corruption of innocence. Women are told to be tramps. Free love. Women are not to be trusted.’ Lewis the director finds himself in a relationship with girlfriend Lucy, that itself is untrustworthy. Lewis lives with his girlfriend Lucy who is more interested in politics than love, as well as friend Nick. Towards the end of running the play Lewis is confronted with the fact that Lucy and Nick are having sex, but neither Nick or Lucy see it that way, ‘No she’s sleeping with you, we’re having sex’ is how both Nick and Lucy see the situation. It obvious that Lucy and Lewis have different views on the issue of love, Lucy – ‘ Love is an emotional indulgence for the privileged few’. Where as Lewis describes it, as ‘without love the world wouldn’t mean much’. This shows how even the play Cosi is disapproving of love as well as the opera itself Cosi Fan Tutte. Cosi Fan Tutte written by the famous Mozart essentially is translated to ‘women are like that’. It tells a tale of two men Ferrando and Guglielmo who express to a to a man named Don Alfonso that there fiancés will be eternally faithful, with Don Alfonso placing a wager, exclaiming he can prove that all women are fickle, and that the two fiancés are no exception. The plan is put into action, yet regardless of the outcome (whether the fiancés were tempted or not) it is obvious from the beginning that Mozart’s idea of love and in fact the plays idea of love is that women essentially can’t be trusted. Along with Lucy Lewis finds himself in a love triangle with one of the patients Julie a recovering drug addict, and if you count obsessed patient Cherry who has a thing for Lewis, he’s in some sort of Love Square. Although Cherry doesn’t really have Cherry’s attention at all much to her disgust, it may have something to do with the fact Cherry has been in institutions for some time and is not as ‘with it’ as Julie. Although paying little attention to Cherry and hypocritically kissing Julie whilst still with Lucy, Lewis finds himself having the hearts of 3 women to having none and finding himself alone, once the play is finished. Julie finished her time in the institution and wasn’t keen on anything more with director Lewis. This example shows yet another scenario where the play manages to criticize any sort of love between any of the characters for that matter. Not only do Lewis, Lucy and Nick have their strong feeling about love, but the patients, and characters for the Play Cosi Fan Tutte have there own views on the issue of love. Henry for example thinks ‘ Cosi condones the corruption of innocence…. Women are not to be trusted’. This along with other views of the character are quite uniform except for Doug who believes in free love, but that’s the last of his worries, he has definite issues, that obviously have manipulated his views on love, whether it’s the fact he is a pyromaniac or the fact he has long lasting unresolved problems with his mother. Doug exclaims ‘ I believe in free love, but it’s hard to practice it in here’. In conclusion both the play Cosi and Cosi Fan Tutte have there own passionate views on love. Whether it’s the fact that free love is the answer or the idea that women are fickle and untrustworthy. Regardless the two are clearly unsupportive of what is seen as true love, although Lewis feels very strongly about the issue of love not even he can keep a lasting relationship, not even he manages to find love, even though he feels he originally could find it with then girlfriend Lucy. Lewis continues to use a quote from the play Cosi Fan Tutte ‘Woman’s constancy is like the Arabian Phoenix. Everyone swears it exists, but no one has seen it’. P71