KDHX Theatre Review - Amadeus
St. Louis Shakespeare
Reviewed by Nancy Crouse
This is Nancy Crouse reviewing St. Louis Shakespeare’s simplified yet stylish staging of the expressionistic, existential Amadeus, Peter Shaffer’s 6th and latest version of his acclaimed historical fiction hypothesizing the events in the overlapping lives and careers of the nearly forgotten 18th Century Viennese court composer Salieri and the timeless musical genius Mozart. Milt Zoth’s direction of an articulate and talented cast and Patrick Huber’s unit set, lit to enhance tableaus and create shadows by Nick Moramarco, clarify the play’s through line: Salieri’s deathbed confession not to a priest but to us, the audience, making us players in the night’s proceedings.
The play builds as a musical composition beginning with an overture of whispers from studied, shadowed players aligning “Salieri” with “Assassin.” Next, Sarah Cannon and Teresa Doggett masterfully play a black and white Greek chorus of two tattle-tale gossips, the Venticelli, giving the first of many allegro duets proclaiming rumors and questioning motives. Doggett also provides the cast with a grand array of richly textured, well-suited costumes. Then the first of many Salieri arias begins as he explains the controlling role of music in his life, pulling us into his dark psychological landscape. Despite its title, the play belongs to Salieri played commandingly with refined satiric ease and vast range by Kevin Beyer. He provides the rationale for his own spiritual corruption, a Faustian pact with God gone south, explaining his vow to God that he would be devoutly pious and virtuous praying God in turn make Salieri His instrument for Absolute beauty in music. Salieri’s successes suggest the pact has been honored until the winds of rumor chill him with reports of Mozart’s arrival in Vienna and prospective favor in the court of Joseph II. Matt Kahler’s Joseph II, Chuck Lavazzi’s Count Orsini-Rosenberg, William Alverson’s Count Johann Killian von Strack, and Charlie Heuvelman’s Baron Gottfried van Sweiten are a quartet of colorful yet distinct court personalities.
As the formerly adored, indulged child prodigy, Jared Sanz-Agero brings a larger than usual physical frame to Mozart’s excessive cavorting and giggling boorishness, creating an obscene creature that Salieri abhors and even dismisses-until he hears his music. Only Salieri hears the repeated proofs of the perfection of Mozart’s music; he alone among the musicians at court knows that this crass, potty-mouthed Amadeus, not Salieri, is God’s chosen creator of the Absolute, thus pitting Salieri against them both as well as his own soul. Sanz-Agero and Maura Kidwell as his wife Constanze demonstrate remarkable abandon then strength and depth of character as the play progresses and their fortunes diminish.
Though Salieri absolves all mediocrities at the play’s end, there are none to excuse in this production which has exactly what it needs to be if not Absolute at least complete. See Amadeus at St. Louis Shakespeare playing the Grandel Theatre through August 15 [2004]. Call Metrotix at 314-534-1111 or St. Louis Shakespeare at 314-361-5564 for tickets, or order on line at www.stlshakespeare.org.
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