Australia in the 1970’s

1. Australia in the 1970’s An Introduction to the social context of Cosi

2. What do we know about Australia in the 1970s? • Class brainstorm

3. The decade in context: • The political and social unrest of the 1960’s carried over into the 1970’s. This mirrored social movement throughout other Western countries. • Widespread protest against Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam war led to the removal of troops in 1972. (Show clips) • Prime Minister Gough Whitlam instituted a range of Government reform in his three year tenure. In 1975 he was controversially dismissed. • The women’s rights, indigenous rights and environmental movements all made progress in the 1970’s.

4. American and British influences • The Australian identity has continually evolved from over the decade, from that of a white British colony, to a diverse global culture. • In 1973, American dominance of the Australian music industry prompted the introduction of local content quotas on radio. • Government assistance led to a resurgence of the Australian film industry in the 1970s • Australian television was saturated with American programs in the 1970s, but local content steadily improved in quality and quantity. • Australian sport held fast to its British roots for many years, but has recently adopted the glitzy presentation and TV-friendly conventions of American sport.

5. An introduction to the play within a play- Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte • Throughout the play the characters are engaged in putting on a performance of Mozart’s opera Cosi Fan Tutte. • The title of this play roughly translates into “Women are like that” • It is incredibly important that Nowra elected to include this opera as his play within a play. • It reveals the hidden motives of Cosi’s characters and the underlying concerns of the play. • So it is important to understand what the opera is about to give some context to our text. • http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/history/stories/synopsis.aspx?id=119

6. The Music of the Spheres • Cosi clip.

7. An introduction to the play Cosi • Louis Nowra wrote the play Cosi • It was first performed in 1992 • It is set in 1971 Melbourne • The play is semi-autobiographical (Nowra based the play on some of his own experiences working in a mental asylum) • As a class read through The Age Cosi sheet. • http://education.theage.com.au/cmspage.php?intid=136&intversion=251

8. In Nowra’s own words (from the introduction of the play) • “Madness both frightened and attracted me” (p.xvi) • “This (looking at the time the play is set in) was 1971 and the era of R.D. Laing, a Scottish psychiatrist whose view of madness was oddly reassuring in a decade going crazy. One of his ideas was that labelling people mad was to stigmatise them, and that many mentally ill people should be allowed to go totally mad- once at rock bottom they would find themselves again” (p.xvi) • “This was also the era when chemicals began to control many of the wilder excesses of madmen” (p.xvi)