Shaw Festival's revival of ‘Amadeus,’ a riveting play about mediocrity, is itself surprisingly mediocre

Now, if only Salieri could step off the stage and extend some of that absolution to the production he is in, too.

Directed by Shaw Festival artistic director Tim Carroll, the company’s new revival of “Amadeus” is a surprisingly mediocre production of a play, ironically, about human mediocrity. It’s like a match that’s repeatedly struck against a striker strip, but that doesn’t fully ignite, merely producing faint wisps of smoke. 

The issues with the production have little to do with Carroll’s concept — sleek, spare and distinctly modern as it may be. Despite some richly detailed period costumes by Judith Bowden, her set evokes a seemingly ethereal, liminal space. A scrim upstage displays some handwritten musical notation. Further downstage is a ramp, where much of the action takes place, and on which set pieces are rolled on and off. 

But a consequence of this leanness is that much of the focus shifts to the performances and the play itself. Bowden’s set, in effect, transforms into a crucible to contain Peter Shaffer’s writing, a black comedy concerning the fictionalized rivalry between Salieri and the young Mozart. 

The tension between these two characters is what propels “Amadeus.” The Italian composer is to his Austrian counterpart what Burr is to Hamilton, Judas is to Jesus, Iago is to Othello. 

Both Salieri and Mozart are tragic figures. The former, though feted at the court of Emperor Joseph II (Graeme Somerville), knows he will never possess Mozart’s effortless talent. Try as he might, Salieri soon turns bitter toward the world, shunning God like the archangel Lucifer.

Mozart, by contrast, is brattish and infantile. But the childish way in which he carries himself merely masks the fact that he was stripped of his childhood by his father, Leopold, who dragged the young prodigy on tours across Europe when he was no older than a toddler. 

The relationship between Salieri and Mozart is key to any production of “Amadeus.” However, the one in this Shaw Festival staging lacks sufficient spark. 

Tom Rooney’s Salieri is bitter and acerbic, at times with his chin turned to the skies, cursing a God he views as unjust and uncaring. But Rooney’s Salieri too often comes across as defeated. In the play’s many flashback scenes with Mozart, his Salieri lacks the sense of hunger necessary to make his subsequent failure all the more tragic. 

Michael Therriault’s Mozart, meanwhile, is impious and blasphemous, chortling his way through conversations, with profanity rolling off his tongue as easily as musical notes emerge from his quill. But Therriault’s performance feels as if it’s lacking fine-tuning. He seems to vacillate between two different interpretations: one in which Mozart is completely lost in his infantile outbursts, and another in which he possesses greater self-awareness. 

Carroll also heightens much of the humour in the play. In this production, the gossipy Venticelli (played by Julia Course and Sochi Fried), who keep Salieri appraised of his rival’s latest projects, are played broadly, emphasizing their comic function.

That they come across as especially annoying somewhat dulls Mozart’s irritating nature. And in turn, at least for me, this made it more difficult to sympathize with Rooney’s Salieri. If his whole world is like one ginormous farce, what makes Mozart stand out and become the subject of his ire? 

The issues with Carroll’s production ultimately expose the flaws in Shaffer’s script, which has undergone major rewrites in the years since it premiered on Broadway in 1980. (The play is also significantly different from the Oscar-winning film adaptation in 1984.) The first act contains too many extraneous scenes. As well, Shaffer’s intense focus on Salieri and Mozart means that other characters, like Mozart’s wife Constanze (Kristi Frank), feel like nothing more than one-note caricatures. 

But even if this staging is somewhat discordant, there’s still much to admire in Shaffer’s “Amadeus.” What it has to say about human nature, and our desire for greatness, is both thrilling and chilling. After all, to be a Salieri, and to see ourselves in him, is to be human. That fear of mediocrity, like that which grips Salieri, is in all of us. We can’t all be Mozart. And maybe that’s worthy of absolution.