Genius meets jealousy in Peter Shaffer’s searing revenge tale, handsomely staged at the Oldbury Rep.

First performed in 1979, this award-winning play has a breadth and sophistication which feels almost Shakespearean. ‘Amadeus’ is Shaffer’s most well-known work, thanks to a hugely successful film adaptation in 1984 starring F Murray Abraham and Tom Hulce. It deserves to be more widely known, as director Andy Brown notes, and is exactly the kind of challenging work which should be embraced by amateur theatre groups up and down the country. I commend Oldbury Rep for their choice, one which pays off in a production which brings late eighteenth century Vienna vividly to life on stage.

Candlelit cloaked figures, lining both sides of the theatre, whisper menacingly at the start of the play. “Salieri….Salieri…..Salieri.” The character they refer to is a compelling blend of fact and fiction: Antonio Salieri was a prolific and famed composer to the Austrian Court but there is no evidence to suggest that he plotted to kill Mozart, the premise of the play.

Rumours connecting Salieri to Mozart’s early death at the age of just 35 have forever linked him to stories of murderous revenge and jealousy but Shaffer’s story of their relationship is largely fictionalised. Itself inspired by an 1830 short play by Pushkin, ‘Amadeus’ is a brilliant and poetic play which explores faith, death, fame and the timeless power of music.

Shaffer’s framing device cleverly moves us from 1823 at the start back to the decade 1781-91, as an ageing Salieri recalls his career and all-consuming hatred of Mozart’s genius. Paul Stevenson-Marks delivers an assured performance in the central role of Salieri, an instantly desperate figure consumed by jealousy in the opening unhinged invocation.

Salieri’s divine punishment is to be forced to confront his own mediocrity: whilst he enjoys fame and praise, his work cannot hope to match that of Mozart. And, unlike Emperor Joseph II of Austria and his court, Salieri knows it. “Music is God’s art,” he laments, hoping to strike a divine bargain to be the conduit through which God speaks. His fury with God for choosing the “giggling child” Mozart as His conduit drives the revenge narrative.

In a gender-blind casting of the role, Mariel Oliver is wonderfully childlike and playful as the potty-mouthed Mozart. She is as wild and untamed as her crop of white hair, channelling fearless energy into compositions which astound Salieri but fail to gain the recognition of Matthew Jeffrey’s Emperor (“too many notes”). A loose-lipped rock star, Mozart is an explosive addition to the court; a brash, vulgar, whirlwind of precocious talent whose desire to write about “real life” in opera challenges the artistic conventions of the time.

Emily Jeffrey delivers a naturalistic performance as Constanze, Mozart’s wife, whose naivete and innocence is soon challenged as the couple descend into a life of penury, spurred on by the sabotaging influence of Salieri. The rivalry at the centre of the story is convincing but it is Mozart’s music, punctuating the action throughout the play, which is the real star. Shaffer’s writing focuses us on a very human story of jealousy and revenge but it is art which endures. We listen to Mozart, not Salieri.

A slick production which deserves to be seen as well as heard.

‘Amadeus’ is playing at the Oldbury Rep from 2^nd to 9^th November 2024.