Lewis Hardy The Play Summary

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When Lewis Riley first entered the derelict, fire damaged theatre owned by a Melbourne mental institution with his girlfriend Lucy and best friend Nick, it marked the start of his journey into a different world unseen from the outside. It was 1971 and the troops were still at war in Vietnam. Some patients of the Melbourne mental institution come up with the idea to do a play, the idea was to bring the patients out of there shell to build confidence. Lewis was hired as the director; he didn’t think of how great a learning experience it would be when he agreed to do the play. Lewis’s journey with the patients does not start well; Justin, a social worker at the institution, leaves Lewis alone with the patients in the theatre, there is a long silence.…show more content…
This is a turning point in Lewis’s journey as he earns the patients trust and begins to find more confidence directing the patients. After Doug lights a second fire he is removed from the play, Lewis takes his role in the play and becomes more engaged with the project. The patients also become more involved with the production and Lewis makes positive progress on his journey. Lewis has a learning experience in his journey after his girlfriend Lucy, tells him that working with the patients has changed him. He realises this and sees how he can relate to the patients and accepts who they are. The play go’s ahead and is a great success. Lewis learns that even though the mental patients are mad, they are people who he admires and takes a genuine interest in their views. Lewis becomes happy with who he is and learns that even though the play was a success it won’t be the difference in the patients going from being “mad” to being “normal”. Louis Nowra uses alliteration in the last line of the play “time to turn out the lights”, a nice way to end Lewis’
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