It has been 20 years since Peter Shaffer's acclaimed play Amadeus has been on Broadway, and the newest revival is dignified, well acted and also thoroughly wrongheaded. The playwright has revamped the show to remove some of the melodrama that has always bothered him, but in the process has removed the play's sinister allure. He has softened up the character of Antonio Salieri (David Suchet), making him more sympathetic and less vindictive in his complicated relationship with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Michael Sheen), the musical prodigy that he admires way too much to let him live a happy existence. A sub-par musician, Salieri becomes Mozart's mentor but also his unlikely foe, something Mozart doesn't truly grasp. An immature and vulgar genius, Mozart is presented as a large child in candy store, the delicacy of the art form is taken second to gut instinct, which proves futile in the harshly regulated society of the late 1700's.
Despite richly detailed performances by Suchet, Sheen and the terrific Cindy Katz as Constanze, Mozart's free-willed wife, Shaffer's tampering proves to undo even their most valiant efforts. By making Salieri more of a victim of his own thoughts, we lose the curdling dread, the evil-as-smiling-friend details. The show now devotes so much time to Salieri's woes that it may as well be called Salieri; Mozart seems more a cipher now than ever. It all results in a lovely but misguided production, despite the rich direction by Peter Hall (An Ideal Husband). The set design, costumes and lighting are all arresting, especially an early scenes which reveals its catchy hall-of-mirrors set that reflects the audience, bringing up interesting takes on the fourth wall theory. Another debit is how little of Mozart's music we get to revel in. For a show about a musical genius, we rarely get a sense of how thrilling his music was. In most scenes, we hear a few bars before another actor erupts in a monologue that is thoroughly unnecessary, since the brilliant compositions should speak for themselves. The show also forecasts its conclusions before they happen, so when they do, there is little surprise or sense of discovery. Too much is explained here; there seem to be dozens of monologues throughout, when a few simple directions or gestures might suffice. You may therefore be compelled to rent Milos Forman's Oscar-winning 1984 film. At least in that version, you'll get to fill in the gaping holes in this elegant but seriously lacking revival.
