I could have been a Schopenhauer. I could have been a
Dostoyevsky! What am I saying? I’m losing my mind!
--Vanya,
from Anton Chekhov‘s Uncle Vanya
Near the close of Peter Shaffer’s still-enthralling play Amadeus (now at the Ahmanson in a Broadway-bound revival directed by Sir Peter Hall, who also staged its 1979 premiere), the doddering Viennese First Royal Kapellmeister Antonio Salieri, dying and obviously in a Catholic mood, addresses the audience: “And when you feel the dreadful bite of your failures -- and hear the taunting of unachievable, uncaring God -- I will whisper my name to you: ‘Antonio Salieri: Patron Saint of Mediocrities!’”
Therein lies the work‘s sharpest hook, which goes a long way toward explaining its appeal, as well as that of Milos Forman’s film, adapted by Shaffer from his play. After all, who hasn‘t felt the bite of failure? Yet from this passage, you’d think Salieri were some hack -- a view largely supported by the drama, in which the court composer is continually lauded by musical buffoons, while the true genius-in-residence, Wolfgang A., goes largely unrecognized and unrewarded. Or, to quote Shaffer‘s Salieri, “I must endure 30 years of being called distinguished by people incapable of distinguishing.”
Shaffer spoke to the Weekly in the theater’s lobby. By the playwright‘s own admission, Salieri -- composition instructor for both Beethoven and Liszt -- was decidedly no hack, and remains highly respected today. Which makes Amadeus the kind of fib for which Salieri might sue Shaffer for slander were he alive today, against which the playwright could defend himself with what might be called a “narrative defense” -- that he was writing from the character’s point of view. For though there are dozens of people in Amadeus, and notwithstanding Mozart‘s own petulant flailings, only one actually describes Salieri as a mediocrity, and that’s Salieri himself (the single person in Vienna capable of appreciating Mozart‘s brilliance). “Spiteful, sniggering, conceited, infantine Mozart! . . . shit-talking Mozart with his botty-smacking wife -- him, you have chosen to be your sole conduct,” Salieri protests to God in a pique of jealousy.
Indeed, Amadeus is a revenge melodrama that pits Salieri not so much against Mozart as against God -- and all because Salieri harbors the illusion that God should hold out artistic excellence as a reward for moral virtue. That someone as gifted as Mozart should be so vain and vulgar is, in Salieri’s mind, God‘s mockery of man in general, and of Salieri in particular. The play keeps using the word “mediocrity,” but Amadeus isn’t really about mediocrity at all. It‘s about Salieri’s low evaluation of himself, which fuels both his jealousy and Shaffer‘s cruel and thrilling homage.
In the context of discussing the swift successes of Shaffer’s earlier plays, notably The Royal Hunt of the Sun and Equus, he considered the question of whether or not Amadeus‘ concern with mediocrity, and how Shaffer linked that theme to the bubble bath of celebrity, had had anything to do with the playwright’s fears about his own reputation and talent. The wording was actually: “In what camp does Peter Shaffer ally himself, with Mozart or with Salieri?”
Shaffer, a soft-spoken, silver-haired man suffering that day from jet lag, rubbed his eyes before taking a slug of bottled water.
“You‘d have to be a raving lunatic to say one identifies with Mozart,” he said. “One stands at a distance, in awe. What fascinates me about Mozart is his indispensability as Mozart.” That last part seemed a bit vague -- even to Shaffer. Then he was more direct: “I can’t answer that question, because I haven‘t really reflected on it.”
To his credit, Shaffer gave the question a second try, although, again, the response was an evasion, albeit a fascinating one. He said that after writing the scene in which Mozart jumps over a chair and speaks in scatological baby talk to his fiancee, Constanze, he read an observation by Mozart’s contemporary Karoline Pichler:
“She was wandering about and discovered Mozart playing [the harpsichord] all alone, playing ever more extravagant variations, so she stayed. And when he saw her, he became self-conscious. And what she writes is, ‘He suddenly stopped, jumped over the chair, meowed and ran out of the room.’”
Here, Shaffer re-emphasized the point that he read this passage after he had written the scene in which Mozart and Constanze play a game of cat-and-mouse, implying that he must have been, on some level, tuned in to Mozart‘s spirit or personality. (Similarly, Shaffer insists he did not read Pushkin’s play Mozart and Salieri until after he had completed Amadeus.)
“[Mozart‘s] far too serious to be serious,” Shaffer continued. “Obviously, he was a highly charged man -- his feet never stopped moving. I don’t identify with that side of him. I find genius on that level so awe-inspiring that the notion of being jealous of it is ridiculous. Which is why I felt a kind of sorrow for Salieri, who entertains the familiar belief that talent has something to do with goodness. Mozart may have been irritating, but he was never vicious.”
