COSI FAN TUTTE

It is Schoolies’ Week on the Gold Coast! Ghillian Sullivan’s version of Cosi fan tutte,( or ‘All Girls are Like That’), is to be seti on the Gold Coast during Schoolies’ Week, but still retains the charm, laughter, tears and joy of is most sublime of Mozart’s operas. Cosi fan tutte will be sung in a new English translation by Ghillian Sullivan, whose previous productions have been praised for their sense of fun and the clarity of the text and story-line. “There’s lots of ‘sick’ or even ‘fully sick’ language, which we are used to hearing from you kids every day…’yeah right’”, she says. The characters. Dora and Flora are 2 girls graduating from the best Sydney Schools: silly, spoiled, sheltered and demanding. They dream of marriage while they are up at the Gold coast during Schoolies’ Week with their boyfriends. These girls wear Collette Dinnigan, Sass and Bide, etc. The boys are from (ditto), the best schools, used to luxury, know everything and- to make it worse- were schoolboy cricket stars. They own top model cars, boats and surf equipment etc etc. A little bit insufferable, folks! Still, they do some growing up during the opera --- and that’s the point of Cosi fan tutte, subtitled (all girls are like that). The Story. Two spoiled and silly school-girls go to Schoolies’ Week with their high-school sweethearts, with whom they believe themselves to be totally in love. Their hopes for a marriage proposal are dashed when the boys are suddenly called up to serve in Iraq. The girls find themselves alone, bored, and at the mercy of two dashing new suitors. And who IS that hanger-on, the boy’s high-school sports coach? Why does he come to Schoolies’ Week every year? Is he perhaps a ‘Toolie’, or trying to resurrect his lost youth, or is he bitter because he never quite made the A-Grade Cricket team and ended up a School team coach? What’s his agenda? The ensuing situations are ridiculous and farcical, but reach our deepest feelings in moments of radiant scoring by Mozart, which do more than hint at deep emotional turmoil. It is also situation comedy at its best. Lucille Ball - eat your heart out! Bewildered parents of teenagers may gain some insights into their own teenagers by coming to see our production, or at least be reassured that “all kids are like this”—and why wouldn’t they be like this? Our own children, like the 4 sweethearts in Cosi, are still innocents at 17 or 18yrs of age, trying to find a way to behave like, and become, adults…..but not by asking advice from their parents of course. And didn’t we ALL do that? Cast Features: Sue Carson Kathryn Dries Simone Easthope John Peek Ashley Giles Javier Vilarino Paul Morris Katherine Stariha