Richmond Shakespeare’s ‘Amadeus’ brings reality to the myth.

In the past two years, I’ve become fairly well-acquainted with Richmond Shakespeare’s work, from the summer festivals to the downtown seasons.  Before anyone accuses me of favoring them, let me say that I have had to critically review productions for my coursework on numerous occasions–at one point even critiquing my own professor–and I can honestly say that I have never censored myself, and that I am extremely careful in removing any positive bias from my thoughts as I write a review.  When I see a show, I do my absolute best to remove myself and simply watch the show and the work that the actors do.

I am not simply writing about Richmond Shakespeare’s current production of Amadeus out of habit but out of sheer awe of the incredible work that I observed on the opening weekend of performances.

I have seen ten of Richmond Shakespeare’s last eleven performances, and this may be the best yet.

I’m not a trained critic, but I am an actor.  I’ve seen enough, experienced enough, learned enough, received enough training to know good work when I see it.

So no, I’m not writing for a newspaper, or a class, nor am I writing to directly counter anyone else’s review.  Part of being an actor is learning from watching other people’s performances.

With that mindset, I waited attentively on the evening of Friday the 13th for the opening night of Amadeus for the show to begin.  I was so completely engaged in watching each of the actors move through their carefully crafted performances, each gesture, expression, inflection, and found it absolutely organic.  Absolutely breathtaking.

Now, I worried that I was watching the show too much as an actor and not enough as an audience member–and worried that it would keep me from writing a truly accurate and well-rounded review for the general public–so I went to see the show again with my family.  Of course, the only night everyone was available was the next day, Valentine’s Day.  I worried that I’d tire of the show, having just seen it the night before, and again I was proven incorrect.  That’s the great thing about theater–it’s a little different every night, and having watched the details throughout the previous night’s performance, I could watch the big picture–how all of the actors’ characters had been seamlessly woven together to create both character and story arcs that were so tight, so perfect that it makes you ache a little inside just experiencing it.

My point is that my review can’t be too far off, having seen the show twice (which, I believe, is more than most reviewers can say) and that I’ve looked at it from both angles.  It was a sight to behold.

.~*~.

Courtesy of Richmond Shakespeare

In a nine-actor show, it’s hard to say that there are any true “stars” or “supporting actors.”  If you take one person out of the mix, the show completely disintegrates.  Each actor had a critical part of the story to tell, and not a one in the cast of Amadeus fell short of doing just that.

David Janosik and Jake Allard both played in the summer festival of 2008 and did fantastic work in their respective shows, Compleat Wrks of Wllm Shakespear and As You Like It.  I could never have imagined then how much fun it would be to watch them work in tandem as Salieri’s ‘Venticelli,’ his “little winds” that are always foppishly brimming with the latest gossip.  Their interplay was quick, tight, and engaging, and the physicalization of their roles was absolutely fantastic.  They were not identical–a thing that is hard enough to accomplish when you’re working so closely.  Instead, they were a team, each actor having developed his character with a full range of motions and stances that clearly stemmed from their incredibly individualized personalities.  What was especially fun was to see how one character informed the other in their lightning-fast exchanges.  The difference was evidenced each time Salieri paid them: while Janosik would typically stow the coin right away, Allard typically took the time to polish the coin a bit on his sleeve.  The details can make or break a performance, and the team of Janosik and Allard evidenced this beautifully.

Jamie Reese played Count Franz Orsini-Rosenberg and so completely embodied the “toad” that Mozart believed him to be.  With many of the characters in Shaffer’s play, there’s a line or two that most audiences would use to decide whether the actor really has “got it.”  For Count Franz, it’s absolutely the utterance of the phrase “too many notes.”  Reese’s delivery of that line perfectly embodied his characterization: a prideful musical know-it-all who has quite a bit of power and knows how to use it–and KNOWS that he knows how to use it.  Stuck in the “traditional” styles of music, he very calmly and coolly (and yet somehow bombastically!) triumphs over Mozart in the matter of a ballet sequence in Mozart’s ‘Marriage of Figaro.’ There was a cunning satisfaction that was evident but never overpowering that Reese’s character clearly derived from ripping the ballet out of Mozart’s score.  This Count Orsini-Rosenberg was a masterful manipulator, and yet there were times when I myself almost felt the gloating satisfaction with which Reese’s character nearly gleamed.  If that’s not a sign of a great performance, I don’t know what is.

Joseph Sultani played Baron Von Swieten and provided a great contrast to Reese’s Orsini-Rosenberg.  Sultani subtly blended a tinge of noble confidence with what seemed a genuine sensitivity of a man not ruled but guided by emotion and compassion.  There was an air of self-assuredness about him that certainly told the audience that the Baron was quite aware of his status as Baron, and yet he seemed a genuinely nice guy–and maybe the nicest of the court.  After all, he does stand up for Mozart on occasion, and always seemed altruistically motivated in doing so; his character never appeared to be an actor himself.  Sultani’s character was one that appeared nobly generous as he offered membership to both Salieri and Mozart into his society of Masons.  What was truly wonderful about Sultani’s performance was the progression of the character as Mozart began to wear out his welcome.  Even the most generous people have a breaking point, and Von Swieten was no exception when he sees Mozart’s vaudeville that showcases Masonic rituals.  The problem with such a breaking point is too often an actor will seem to play two completely different characters: there’s little or no progression from one to the other.  This was absolutely not the case with Sultani’s performance–his exchange in which he reminds Mozart that the Masons cannot support him forever displayed an organic combination of regret and frustration, carefully blending the two sides of Von Swieten and allowing for a well-played transition from one end of the spectrum to the other.

Katie Ford played both Count Von Strack and the [nonspeaking] role of Katharina Cavalieri to perfection.  Ford’s Count was a perfect caricature of any courtly official.  Through the vocabulary of movement that she utilized throughout the show to the Count’s unwittingly revealing expressions, Ford absolutely understands how and why things are amusing, but never, ever did something just to win a laugh.  Everything was justified, and therein lies the beauty of what she created: while you couldn’t help but laugh as Ford as the Count tried to decipher Salieri’s and Orsini-Rosenberg’s conversations in Italian, you couldn’t help but also feel a little sorry for him.  It was also appropriate that Ford utilized period movements and stances more often than the other actors; Von Strack is clearly one of the characters MOST concerned with decorum and custom.

Ford’s Cavalieri was a nonspeaking character in terms of spoken word, but she could say more in a second with a flickering glance than Shaffer’s pen ever could.  I said it of her performance in Hamlet, and I’ll say it again: Katie Ford can channel her femme fatale like nobody’s business–and in way that never feels sleezy, silly, or put-on.

Cynde Liffick played the Emperor, which, like Orsini-Rosenberg, is a character that can often be tested in one line, this time “Well, there it is.”  As an actor, I know how hard it is to use a repeated word or phrase to its fullest extent.  It’s hard enough when it’s repeated a couple of times.  Liffick had to make that line work at LEAST eight–if not ten–times. Liffick, like Ford, made use of a more formalized, more classical movement that suited her character quite well.  I’ll admit that upon first reading the cast list, I saw her name next to “Emperor Joseph II” and went “huh?”  I’m quite familiar with RS’s cross-gender casting, but I wondered just how they’d make it work this time around.  Absolutely perfectly, apparently.  The Emperor’s just a bit of a Francophile, and Liffick worked that to its fullest potential without beating the audience about the head with it.  The Emperor is amusing through his subtlety, and his sense of gaiety and revelry (“Fetes and fireworks!” anyone?)  Liffick’s expression both physically and vocally was every bit as subtle, and the result was deliciously funny.

Liz Blake played the headstrong (if ill-bred) Constanze, wife to Mozart.  She handled the range of the character with grace and poise, clearly grasping both the comic and tragic elements of Constanze as well as Constanze’s role within the context of the play.  In some ways, Blake is very much like her character: quick-witted, well-meaning, and incredibly personable.  In some ways, Blake and Constanze are polar opposites.  While Blake is incredibly intelligent, I’m not sure the same can be said of Constanze, nor do I believe that Constanze truly appreciates her husband’s genius.  It seems that playing a character that is less intelligent than oneself–especially when intellect can be such an incredible tool in the creative process–could be a real feat.  Additionally, Blake held at least half the responsibility of conveying the growth and progression of the Mozart-Weber marriage, and she did a fantastic job of showing that while some things in a marriage may change–especially due to “external” circumstances–some things never will.  Blake’s Constanze is first a girl, really, but becomes a woman familiar with the ache of poverty who has to dig deep to find the playful romance with which her marriage began.

Mike Hamilton and Andrew Hamm in 'Amadeus.' Photo courtesy of Richmond Shakespeare, taken by Eric Dobbs.

Mike Hamilton played Amadeus himself, and I admit that going into it I felt that quite a lot was riding on his performance.  After all, Mozart was a genius and very childlike.  That’s hard enough on its own, but the gold in acting is to find a way to play a character that stirs some compassion, empathy, or understanding in the audience without forcing it.  I had nothing to worry about–I don’t think there was really anything Hamilton could have improved upon in the two shows that I saw.  The classic “Mozart” laugh seemed incredibly natural (for the character!) and was never overdone (beyond what was appropriate).  It was absolutely amazing: Hamilton’s Mozart was definitely childish much of the time, and yet in that childishness came the flashes of brilliant, almost innocent sincerity.  One moment that I honestly don’t think I’ll ever forget was the moment in the “Quartet” scene in which he speaks of how “God must hear the world.”  I am not alone in feeling that Hamilton’s Mozart was far more human and more believable than the performance in the film version.  Real acting is acting that can’t be recognized as acting, at least if you buy in to Stanislavsky and every theorist that came after him.  Hamilton’s got this performance down, and it is unbelievably wonderful.

Of course, if the actor playing Mozart has a tough job, the actor that plays Salieri has an even tougher task.  I have to say that I was thrilled with Andrew Hamm’s performance.  He has this intensity that really came through in his performance last month with the Richmond Symphony, and he clearly knows the power of it.  The scoring of Salieri’s intensity was, in my opinion, perfectly paced: any earlier would have been too much, and any later would have been too late.  That intensity is an incredible gift to an actor ONLY if they know how to use it.  Like Hamilton’s Mozart, I believed Hamm’s Salieri much more than I believed the performance in the film.  Hamm brings us on the emotional roller coaster of a man consumed with desire that conflicts with his morality.  It didn’t hurt at all that Hamm is a musician; as he heard Mozart’s music, there was no doubt in my mind that he was really, truly feeling the music.  I was brought to tears once through the entire performance, and it was in the moment in which Salieri is begging Mozart for forgiveness, as Mozart’s mental deterioration becomes clear.  These actors took two characters of almost mythic renown and make them human again: people that love, hurt, desire and need just as we do.  If there was a line dropped here or there, so be it.  I’d rather have a few flubbed words from actors that are truly living in the moment than a couple of cardboard figurines posturing and posing and speaking every word just as it’s written.

Of course, actors can only do so much on their own.  This production would not be the wonder that it is were it not for James Alexander Bond.  He’s directed several of Richmond Shakespeare’s shows in recent years and has yet to disappoint.  An actor can only get so far in character development on their own: they get certain ideas about their character, and it takes a director posing the tricky questions that break first impressions to get to the real content and complexity of the role.  He is also responsible for making fantastic use of the space when it came to staging, from the ‘Quartet Scene’ to each of the performances within the performance to Salieri’s death.  The director is the one with the vision for the show as a whole, and Mr. Bond made it all not just work, but really shine.

This production was never meant to be the film version of 1984.  This production was never meant to be a “period” production.  The beauty of Richmond Shakespeare is that their work blends tradition with innovation, but never for the sake of completely reaching one end of the spectrum while forgetting another.  It is always with the intent of bringing the audience into the art, and a belief that period custom in movement OR costume is a must shows a misunderstanding in the objective of the work.  That is what makes the performing arts so continuously fresh and inviting–they encourage people to connect with other human beings.  Isn’t that what makes us human?  Isn’t that why art is important?

This production is a gem.  I hope that the entire cast, crew and company know what a truly phenomenal job they’ve done once again.