Playwright: Alexander PushkinAt: T.U.T.A. at Chicago Dramatists
Phone: (847) 217-0691;
$18
Runs through: Feb. 15
Mozart and Salieri comes to Chicago audiences with an impressive
pedigree. It was penned by Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, and its spare verse format was translated into
English by Vladimir Nabokov and Edmund Wilson (marking the only time in Nabokov's career he ever
collaborated with another author). The play also inspired the Oscar-winning movie Amadeus. Its themes deal
with no lesser topics than immortality, power, and the creative process. It raises provocative questions, such
as why seemingly effortless creativity can trump hard work and craftsmanship. It hints at murderous envy.
Pushkin's imaginative take on the final hours of Amadeus Mozart's young life in the presence of his
paradoxical friend and foe, Antonio Salieri, has all the earmarks of great theater: its story of artistic jealousy is
engaging, and its plot, about how a requiem Mozart has written was commissioned by a dark and mysterious
stranger, is thought provoking and mysterious.
With all this going for it, it's a shame that T.U.T.A. (The
Utopian Theatre Asylum), under the direction of Zelijko Djukic, has so many missteps that mar this potentially
gripping and ethereal piece. First, the piece is short (10 pages or so) and the production shows all the signs of
desperation to stretch it out to feature-length. Speeches are chopped up and interrupted with odd bits of stage
business, such as the appearance of a superfluous, black-dressed figure (Matthew van Colton), who silently
tromps around in platform, Frankenstein-style boots that fit neither the time period nor the rest of the
production. Djukic has employed the efforts of a classical guitarist to add a little music. The plucking power of
Goran Ivanovic is pleasant enough, but overused. The intermezzo between acts one and two is drawn on far
too long, especially when the audience is held captive in their seats. Second, the performances of the two
principals, Kirk Anderson as Salieri and Bob Kulhan as Mozart, are often too mannered to allow us to really
enter the charged situation Pushkin has set up. The pair never rise above actors trying to impress, rather than
the historical figures they should be portraying. And last, the weirdest choice of all comes in the second act,
when the director has decided to employ a pool table, complete with cue sticks and balls, in the climactic
dinner scene between the two musicians. Such odd choices for the sake of being odd lift the audience right out
of the world we should be immersed in. The only thing that does work is the falling snow at the end of the
piece, after Mozart has died from the poison Salieri administered (and even this is flawed, because the
contraption that drops the snow creaked inelegantly).
Mozart and Salieri is a distinctive piece of writing. It's
too bad that the production didn't aspire to the level of its material.