Peter Shaffer’s engrossing AMADEUS (at New
Repertory Theatre through May 19th) may name Mozart in the title but
the Tony winning play put his rival, Salieri, on the map. Music scholars know
the lesser 18th century composer for his rarely performed works but
look up Salieri in the music dictionary and his students (Beethoven, Schubert
and Liszt) are itemized, not his compositions.
The Mozart-Salieri connection has fascinated
writers before. Thornton Wilder wrote a theatrical miniature more than fifty
years ago in which Mozart is plagued by fears that Salieri, among others, might
be trying to harm him. Shaffer’s play even mirrors the scene from the miniature
where Mozart is visited by a mysterious, masked stranger dressed like the
avenging statue from Mozart’s incomparable Don Giovanni.
Director Jim Petosa and company capture the
lavish, arch style of the late 18th century, aided in good measure
by Frances Nelson McSherry’s rich, sumptuous costumes and Rachel Padula
Shufelt’s gorgeous wigs. Benjamin Evett’s Salieri wages his war with God as a
siege. He will defeat his brilliant competitor by attrition, to repay God for
bestowing genius on this “obscene” upstart instead of him. The dogged pursuit
of Mozart as prey leaves one cringing from Salieri’s sadistic orchestrations.
(Other productions have made Salieri wickedly charming, like Don Giovanni, but
not this one.)
As Mozart, Tim Spears cavorts like a wild
child, propelling himself like a human skateboard up onto Cristina Todesco’s
curved centerpiece. Lines of longitude and latitude spread out onto the floor
and a circle cutout in the sculpture becomes a stained glass window, a platform,
a perch for Mozart to observe the action below. McCaela Donovan matches Mozart
in playful innocence as Constanze, making Salieri’s sexual blackmail even more heinous.
Opera fans will find pleasure in the many
references to Mozart’s operas, like the “Pa Pa” nicknames the couple swap (which
become “Pa Pa Papageno” in The Magic Flute) or Mozart’s offer to let
Constanze beat him when he’s been naughty (which becomes “Batti Batti” in Don
Giovanni).
Salieri’s spies, Paula Langton and Michael
Kay, add mischief to the mayhem while they carry out their Greek Chorus
functions. The court scenes are delightful, with standout performances from
Paul D. Farwell as a grumbling old official, from Evan Sanderson as a
disapproving Baron, from Jeffries Thaiss as the opinionated Kapellmeister and best
of all, from Russell Garrett, hilarious as the earnest but vaguely adrift
Emperor Joseph. “Well, there it is.”
