Act One Scene One and Two

• University graduate Lewis, along with his girlfriend, Lucy and friend, Nick arrive at a burnt out theatre where Lewis has been hired to direct a play involving participants from a mental institution.
• Simply accepting the job for the money, Lewis double-checks that Nick will help him with the ‘madmen’ [pg 1]. Nick, being an experienced director of student productions, agrees only if Lewis returns the favour for Nick’s play, Galileo.
• Lewis meets Justin Anderson, the social worker who organised the project. Next, Doug arrives, a pyromaniac who exclaims that ‘someone must have been in here before me’, referring to the burnt out theatre.
  
• Henry enters soon after, a shy man with disabled left arm carried in an ‘invisible sling’ [pg 3]. Roy eagerly asks if they should start working on the play, however Justin declares that they need to wait for the women. Justin then goes on to share his experience with Lewis; how the patients are ‘normal people who have done extraordinary things, thought extraordinary thoughts’ [pg 5] regardless of their current circumstances.
• Justin departs when the girls Cherry, Ruth and Julie arrive. He shares a quick tip with Lewis,

• whenever this place gets too much for me, I always think of this definition – a madman is someone who arrives at a fancy dress partly dress in the Emperor’s new clothes" [pg 7].

• Beginning his debut as a director, Lewis suggests that they perform The Exception and the Rule by Bertolt Brecht. However, Roy insists that they perform Così Fan Tutte by Mozart. When he explains the plot for Così Fan Tutte, a story about love and fidelity, Lewis is doubtful, since he believes that ‘love is not so important nowadays’ [pg 10] especially with the ongoing Vietnam War.
  
• Ruth, who suffers from an obsessive disorder, states that they will need a real cappuccino machine for the opening scene in a coffee shop.
  
• Knowing this is impossible, Lewis says that they can just pretend to have coffee. Ruth however, still obsesses with the coffee, wondering how she could stir the froth in fake coffee. Roy tries to instill the idea that it does not matter. Zac, a lithium addict, enters in a ‘soporific’ state.
  
• Roy explains that everyone will have to sing, and that the play is entirely in Italian. This renders a dispute between the actors, since all complain that they can’t sing nor speak Italian. Meanwhile, Roy still keen on his choice says to Lewis, ‘I’ll win them over, Jerry! Trust me. Tomorrow come back and you’ll find we’ve missed the iceberg and are sailing in calm waters’ [pg 13].

Scene Two

The next day, the group is auditioned on their singing skills for Così Fan Tutte. 

As a result of Roy taking charge of the play, a roused Lewis argues that no one can sing and no one can speak Italian, ‘an incredible burden, even for the most brilliant talent’ [pg 15]. Although opposed, Roy is adamant on performing Così Fan Tutte.

During break, Lewis listens to the radio where an interview featuring Nick is being broadcast. Nick states that there will be around twenty thousand protestors at a Melbourne moratorium, and that he would be happy to see the protest be a repeat of Paris 1968, ‘young Australians of my age, are getting fed up with our society. We want changes and we want them now!’ [pg 17].

Shaking his head, Lewis turns down the volume on the radio, only to be lead into a conversation with Doug, who supports the idea of ‘throwing rocks at cops, overturning cars, smashing barricades, [and] burning houses’ – widespread actions during the Paris protests.

Doug then asks if Lewis believes in free love since he and Lucy aren’t married and also live in a house with Nick. An offended Lewis states that he doesn’t share Lucy with Nick. Doug then pries on Lucy’s sex life; Lewis reluctantly reveals that Lucy was not a virgin when they first had sex.

Cherry interrupts their conversation asking for the toilets. Doug insults Cherry by stating that he hopes Cherry falls in the toilet but unfortunately she’s ‘too fat’ [pg 19]. Cherry spits back that he should ‘go burn a cat.’ Lewis wonders why Doug is repeatedly told to burn things.

Doug explains that he is pyromaniac, an impulse control disorder where one feels a sense of pleasure from lighting fires. He then reveals that he burnt his mother’s five cats by locking them in a cage, ‘doused them with petrol and put a match to them’ only to then release them, thrilled to see them running around on fire. Yet the reason why he was sent to the mental institutions was because one of the cats ran into his mother’s home and burnt the entire house down.

Cherry returns and Doug leaves for the toilet. Cherry ‘stuffs a sandwich into [Lewis’] mouth’, in an attempt to ‘get some flesh on [his] bones.’ Zac, affected by the lithium, hears an omnipresent ringing and crashes his face down on the piano, screaming that he will ‘get The Electric Prunes album!’ [pg 21]. Julie comes up and asks Lewis for his radio so she can listen to music. After she leaves with the radio, Cherry snickers that Julie is a ‘typical junkie, needs stimulus all the time or else her thoughts turn to you-now-what’, referring to illicit drugs [pg 21].

Doug runs back to the group screaming that someone lit a fire in the toilet. Everyone instantly rushes to get water and buckets, while Cherry repeatedly yells that she will kill Doug for lighting the fire.

(http://www.vcestudyguides.com/guides/text_response/cosi/act-1-scene-2)