The St Andrews Art Theatre’s rendition of Amadeus by Peter Shaffer follows the rise and fall of well-renowned composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, from the perspective of the vengeful virtuoso Antonio Salieri. With an impressive 24-piece live orchestra alongside a talented cast of actors (directed by Aidan Monks), these performances fit seamlessly together, effectively delivering a production with tragedy and comedy interwoven.
As Salieri spirals in loathing of Mozart, God, and his own inadequacies, his fourth-wall-breaking narrations become intimate confessionals. Dylan Swain portrays a perfectly melodramatic and tragically ludicrous Salieri, effectively balancing the tragic core and camp tone of the play. The whole cast gives incredible performances that bounce between serious and frivolous — these emotive tones compliment each other to create an emotionally resonant and enjoyable production. This is an impressive feat, as there is an astute gradient of emotions and no instances of crudely chopping and changing between tones. An audience favourite is Aubrey McCance’s sensational performance as Emperor Joseph II, who is a delightful, farcical display of ‘fetes and fireworks’.
The designers and producers are willing to brave ‘contamination’ of period-accuracy, shown the work of Kritvi Gupta and Lila Patterson (the make-up & hair designers). Their character crafting is marvellously effective, achieved through emphasising facial features and exaggerating facial expressions. Their use of make-up concepts from 1980s club cultures contributes wonderfully to the theatrical flamboyance in the play. In Susan Sontag’s historiography of camp, Mozart is considered to demonstrate in his work a camp “taste for the picturesque and the thrilling, its elegance conventions for representing instant feeling and the total presence of character.” Though the performance is largely from the perspective of Salieri, it is also masterfully imbued with this flourish that Sontag noted was present in Mozart’s original works themselves.
All involved in this production have an astute understanding of comedy, weaving it into their work while avoiding the show becoming unserious. From the numerous awe-inspiring displays of operatic talents, to Salieri’s reverence of Fisher and Donaldson’s fudge doughnuts, the play is two hours of truly the best bits of St Andrews — the serious and the frivolous.
Photo by Kritvi Gupta, provided by the St Andrews Art Theatre as press material.