Jefferson Mays' complex portrayal of Salieri ignites new revival of 'Amadeus' at Pasadena Playhouse

“Amadeus,” Peter Shaffer’s 1979 runaway deed drama, has 1 ft successful the Vienna of Mozart and different ft successful immoderate play the accumulation is taking spot in. The play, a sumptuous humanities pastiche, is some an invitation and a daunting situation to theatre makers.

Darko Tresnjak, the Tony winning-director (“A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder”) with a glittering opera resume (including “The Ghosts of Versailles” astatine LA Opera), is unusually well-equipped to instrumentality connected the assignment. And Jefferson Mays, the Tony-winning histrion (“I Am My Own Wife”) and a prized collaborator of Tresnjak’s, was calved to instrumentality connected the relation of Antonio Salieri, the euphony bureaucrat whose overweening ambition to articulation the pantheon of large composers leads to immoderate diabolical machinations.

No surprise, then, that the revival of “Amadeus” that opened Sunday astatine Pasadena Playhouse is simply a marvel to behold. Contained wrong Alexander Dodge’s lush reddish set, Tresnjak’s accumulation moves betwixt the rococo grandeur of Emperor Joseph II’s tribunal and a benignant of interior hellscape, wherever Salieri, the play’s usher and scheming rival of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, tin callback the mischief helium wrought against the young upstart perversely blessed with a divine spark of genius.

“Amadeus” offers a twist connected the Faust legend. As a young man, Salieri prayed to an representation of God successful his Northern Italian town, pledging that, if helium were to go a composer of capable fame, helium would repay this acquisition not lone done his euphony but done surviving a beingness of virtue. This privation is granted, but Salieri reneges connected his extremity of the woody aft losing religion successful the Almighty.

AMADEUS astatine Pasadena Playhouse - Ensemble

(Jeff Lorch)

Worldly success, helium comes to see, is nary motion of genuine distinction. As tribunal composer and euphony gatekeeper, Salieri has powerfulness and position. But helium knows that he’ll ne'er person that earthy brilliance that radiates from Mozart’s compositions similar a heavenly light. He is simply a mediocrity portion the jejune young antheral moving riot successful the palace is simply a miraculous, world-changing prodigy.

Shaffer, whose plays see “Equus,” “The Royal Hunt of the Sun” and “Black Comedy,” is drawn to existential reckonings, and successful “Amadeus” he’s written his cris de coeur connected the immorality of the universe. The hard information is that genius isn’t reserved for the worthy immoderate much than misfortune is reserved for the wicked.

After ruining Mozart’s prospects astatine court, Salieri is stunned to larn that he’s been promoted to kapellmeister. He can’t shingle his Catholic upbringing, but what’s the constituent of being a martyr erstwhile Machiavels are rewarded?

For each the play’s prolific acclaim, “Amadeus” has had a conspicuous 2nd enactment problem. Shaffer kept revising the play, adjacent aft the avalanche of accolades for the London and New York premieres. Miloš Forman’s 1984 movie mentation was lavished with Oscars, further cementing the work’s spot successful nationalist consciousness. But similar Salieri, Shaffer was each excessively alert that popularity isn’t the aforesaid happening arsenic greatness.

He kept reworking the confrontation country betwixt Salieri and Mozart, the play’s climactic infinitesimal successful which irony erstwhile again gets the amended of tragic recognition. As an impoverished and ailing Mozart struggles to implicit his “Requiem” earlier his decease astatine the property of 35, Salieri is torn betwixt his fidelity to euphony and his loyalty to his ain career. He is 1 of the fewer radical of his property equipped to admit the standard of Mozart’s achievement, but the fragility of his ego and his obsession with euphony immortality basal successful his way.

AMADEUS astatine Pasadena Playhouse - Sam Clemmett and Lauren Worsham

(Jeff Lorch)

In the preface to the updated Samuel French variation of the play, Peter Hall, who directed the work’s archetypal London and New York productions, recalls his 1998-99 revival and the important relation Los Angeles played successful the script’s evolution. “We opened astatine the Old Vic successful London successful 1998,” helium writes. “We past came to the Ahmanson Theatre successful October 1999 to statesman our pre-Broadway tour. There should beryllium a plaque connected the partition of that theatre — ‘Amadeus was finished present October 1999 aft 20 years of enactment ’ — due to the fact that the text-work continued determination and was (I think) yet concluded.”

The wide thrust of the changes were to de-melodramatize Salieri’s enactment and to absorption much attraction connected his guilt and metaphysical torment. Shaffer succeeds successful this regard, but the wordy play grows cumbersome successful its last explanatory stages. And Salieri seems much of hybrid creature, arsenic though a villain retired of Christopher Marlowe had abruptly been endowed with Shakespearean self-awareness.

Mays’ portrayal — I can’t ideate anyone topping his mentation of the quality — is fiendishly complex. There’s not a furniture that has gone unexcavated successful a show of bonzer verbal installation and color. “Amadeus” relies dense connected monologues, and Mays is not lone a ace ensemble subordinate but besides a maestro soloist. (His circuit de unit successful “A Christmas Carol,” wherever helium played dozens of characters, matched his virtuosity successful Doug Wright’s “I Am My Own Wife.”)

The play begins astatine Salieri’s end, the country of a dying antheral fanning suspicions implicit his relation successful Mozart’s death. Mays’ Salieri — bald, munching Italian cookies and foaming astatine the rima erstwhile successful the grip of seething resentment — has a communicative to tell, a detective communicative successful which the transgression being investigated whitethorn not beryllium the execution he’s touting but a spiritual discourtesy that is adjacent much agonizing to confess. An inveterate self-promoter, Salieri is determined to power however he’ll beryllium remembered. And if helium can’t bushed Mozart astatine music, past he’ll happily judge a spot successful past arsenic his assassin.

AMADEUS astatine Pasadena Playhouse - Jefferson Mays

(Jeff Lorch)

The play rewinds to the infinitesimal erstwhile Mozart (Sam Clemmett) enters the scene, whooping similar a tribunal jester and making scatological remarks similar the “obscene child” that Salieri (now wearing a wig) compares him to. While the weary tribunal composer is buried successful the bureaucracy of authorities music, teaching scores of pupils, serving connected endless committees and composing anthems and choral pieces, Mozart is dashing disconnected works of startling originality portion acting similar a implicit goofball.

Mays and Clemmett are good matched arsenic antagonists, balancing the flamboyant flaws and stubborn humanity of their characters. Clemmett’s Mozart is simply a baby-faced libertine, an overgrown lad trying to ascent up skirts. Mays’ Salieri is astatine erstwhile aghast astatine specified loutish behaviour and bitterly envious that Mozart is exceptional capable to get distant with it.

Mozart, however, isn’t simply a puerile rascal, arsenic his narration with Lauren Worsham’s Constanze reveals. As their romance turns to marriage, world sets successful for them both. Their poverty, the effect of Salieri’s malicious ploys, tests the limits of their endurance. Mozart’s genius isn’t truthful overmuch unrecognized arsenic unremunerated. When Constanze reaches her breaking point, Mozart’s imbecility is exposed arsenic fragility. He’s mislaid without her nurturing sensuality.

Tresnjak treats the play arsenic though it were a calamity wearing the disguise of comedy. He doesn’t defy the melodrama that’s inherent successful the material, but helium refuses to overindulge it. This accumulation hasn’t convinced maine that “Amadeus” is simply a satellite classic. (The communicative slogs astatine points and the 2nd enactment is overwritten.) But I uncertainty I’ll person the accidental to spot a amended revival successful my lifetime.

AMADEUS astatine Pasadena Playhouse - Sam Clemmett and Jefferson Mays

(Jeff Lorch)

The ensemble’s playful insouciance maintains the production’s buoyancy. Matthew Patrick Davis accentuates with a wink the callowness of Joseph II, an emperor who possibly sees successful Mozart a reflection of his ain stunted nature. John Lavelle exudes a perfumed whiff of modern campy successful his portrayal of Orsini-Rosenberg, the fussy, backstabbing manager of the Imperial Opera.

The Venticelli, the chorus-like “purveyors of fact, rumor and gossip passim the play,” according to Shaffer, are played by Jennifer Chang and Hilary Ward with timeless vibrancy. Sopranos Michelle Allie Drever and Alaysha Fox springiness america a illustration of Mozart’s operatic preeminence. (The item is “Soave sia il vento,” a gorgeous trio from “Così instrumentality tutte” that’s performed present with Jared Andrew Bybee.)

But it’s connected a ocular level that the accumulation is astatine its astir entrancing. Linda Cho’s costumes, built from scratch by L.A. Opera’s costume shop, summon the spectacular opulence of this music-obsessed Viennese world. Will Vicari’s wig and constitution plan implicit the extravagantly artificial manner of the period. Pablo Santiago’s lighting and Aaron Rhyne’s projections lend the accumulation a dreamlike fluidity, perfect for a play that emanates arsenic overmuch from Salieri’s representation arsenic from his unconscious.

All would beryllium lost, however, without Mays’ quicksilver brilliance — the mode helium tin displacement from savage irony to vindictive rage to godless despair successful the abstraction of a line. Salieri whitethorn beryllium a mediocrity, destined to beryllium a footnote successful the abbreviated yet indelible beingness of Mozart. But successful the coterie satellite of theatre connoisseurs, Mays has earned a spot among acting immortals.