This classic Australian play by Louis Nowra never feels dated, especially when it’s so capably interpreted as this Melbourne and Sydney Theatre Company co-production. Directed by MTC Associate Artistic Director Sarah Goodes, it’s a well cast rollercoaster ride of pathos and black comedy that soon has one believing in a seemingly impossible dream.

Glenn Hazeldine, Robert Menzies, Esther Hannaford, Bessie Holland, Sean Keenan and Katherine Tonkin. Photograph © Jeff Busby

The play about a group of psychiatric patients trying to stage Mozart’s opera Così fan tutte made its debut in 1992. Since then it’s rarely been absent from stages, both amateur and professional, and was adapted to the screen in 1996. It’s set in the early 1970s, and is inspired by Nowra’s own youthful experience as a consulting director at a psychiatric hospital.

In Così, that young director is Lewis. He gradually sets aside the outside world’s struggle with the Vietnam War’s political and moral questions, as he comes to grasp the fundamentals of life through his misfit bunch of would-be thespians. Lewis is sensitively interpreted by Sean Keenan, who injects just enough frustration and, ultimately, enthusiasm into this straight-man role to make him...