By Cindy and Perry Whitehair
Utah Repertory Theater has always been known to take chances. Never ones to do the “tried and true” Valley favorites, they tend to go big and bold with their show selections. Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus fits that style.
We walked into the Sorenson Community Center Black Box to a simple set reminiscent of the many drawing rooms of the Schonbrunn Palace in Vienna. Allisyn Thompson’s set design was functional and set a very good opening impression. Of course, walking in to Mozart as the background music helped in taking me back to Vienna (where Perry and I spent many lovely days when we lived in Germany.) I can only guess that Music Director Anne Puzey had a delightful time coming up with all of the selections that were used to background music through out the show. The costuming (Nancy Susan Cannon) and wig design (Cindy Johnson) were splendid and again, spot on 18th Century Vienna.
The show starts of with Venticella (Lindsay Marriott) and Venticello (Dallon Thorup) talking about the latest court rumor – that a dying Antonio Salieri (Roger Dunbar) had confessed to murdering Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Geoffrey Gregor.) The scene then cuts to Salieri’s drawing room where the dying man, after dismissing his servants for the day, summons the shades (the audience) so that he can tell his tale of court intrigue.
There are simply not enough adjectives to adequately describe Roger Dunbar’s outstanding performance as Salieri. The role requires the actor to switch from a dying old man to a young court composer with nothing more than an on stage costume change. He goes from feeble to youthful (and back again) distinctly and quickly. The raw emotion that this role calls for was so well played, if felt like we were watching someone on the verge of a nervous break down for the whole show. The contrast between Salieri’s love of Mozart’s beautiful music and his absolute disdain for the man behind the music was marvelously portrayed. You felt the pain and the conflict that Salieri felt.
The perfect foil to Dunbar’s Salieri was Geoffrey Gregory’s Mozart. Where Salieri is noble and pious, Mozart is rude and profane. While there is much written into the script to draw out the differences between the two men, the differences in acting styles between Dunbar and Gregory accentuated and personalized those differences. Gregory’s wide open style captured the boy/man Mozart….the beautiful, insecure, bright eyed musical savant who had no experience with court intrigue. His portrayal of Mozart was BIG like Mozart.
With a pair of stellar, over-powering leads, it is often easy for the supporting cast to step back and “phone it it.” However, that did not happen with this cast. Merry Magee’s Costanze stood up to both men with the quiet power of a woman who was going to do whatever it took to help the love of her life. Natalie Easters’ Katherina Cavalieri always caught your eye the minute she stepped on stage. While she didn’t have many lines, her soto voce rendition of “Caro Mio Ben” was hauntingly beautiful. Jeffrey Owen’s Count Franz Orsini-Rosenberg was the ultimate aristocratic insider. Greg Carver’s Emperor Joseph II was appropriately clueless and JayC Stoddard and Criss Rosenlof (Baron van Swieten and Count von Strack) gave solid performances, while the aforementioned Venticelli (Marriott and Thorup) were often coming in and stealing the scene.
The program did not credit a linguist, but this show simply must be commended on its liberal (and good) use of Italian, French and German that was sprinkled through out the show. Dunbar and Owen especially, were excellent in their scenes where the dialog was mostly in Italian (where they were plotting Mozart’s court demise.) The German was a little American flat, but I still really enjoyed it.
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I have to give special kudos to director JC Carter for letting his actors be themselves and not copies of the actors in the movie, even though (as mentioned in the director’s note) his initial introduction to this story was the movie. His vision of the ebb and flow of the story complimented it well, it even at times seemed to accentuate the multiple layers of the characters and the conflict that make this show so stellar.
To say this is a “must see” show is putting it mildly. You really should see this show, even if you saw Utah Shakespeare’s Amadeus earlier this summer (as I did.) The stylistic differences are profound and give different looks at the story – different things to appreciate about the story. The heart that in this production makes it and makes it the must see that it truly is.
Utah Repertory Theater presents Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus
September 11-26
Sorenson Unity Center Black Box Theater
1383 S 900 W Salt Lake City UT
http://utahrep.org/tickets/
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