Paroxysms of jealousy. Crippling envy. It’s all very ADC Bar, yet Mozart & Salieri wears its genius so lightly that it will charm even the most jaded thesp. Salieri (Rob Heaps) has been toiling at his craft for years, confident that his path to genius is assured by his dedication. Salieri’s ambition is troubled by the happy, boyish Mozart (Rebecca Pitt) who, although more overture than tact, is utterly likeable and utterly brilliant. Salieri tortures himself over his inability to live up to his dreams, unsure whether to revel in what Mozart is effortlessly effusing or to murder the little shit. With the deftest of touches, Mozza & Sazza (sozza) examines what art, genius and friendship might mean.

Directed by Alexandra Finlay and Rob Heaps, Pushkin’s text is transformed. Finlay and Heaps have introduced a chorus of worthies from Dante to Gluck who support and torment Salieri. The six masked figures push Salieri around the stage as he revels in his resentment, only momentarily assuaged by a brief and charming appearance by Henry Eliot as a blind fiddler. If only Henry and his accordion were more readily available for Cambridge’s neurotics.

The bodies of the chorus bend into Mozart’s tables and doorways as Salieri hunts the genius’ latest offering. The chorus acquires personality when Salieri drags them into a classroom to teach them about genius. Dante just wants to write down what Beatrice makes him feel, so the bitter and violent Salieri bins his homework. The six worthies are at the centre here, but they lose some momentum when they introduce themselves in a series of monologues. Marieke Audsley is excellent as a lusty glutinous Piccini, and the others all have some good gags, but the ensemble feel is momentarily lost.

The play is at its very best when the action is less historicised and when the horrific forces that move Salieri are pushed right into the abstract. There are some marvellous set pieces when Salieri becomes a pantomime villain prancing around dark corridors and when the chorus become an instrumentless orchestra for whom the two men compete. The music from a live orchestra and choir is inevitably a pleasure, although Mozart’s Requiem is harder to hear when we know the misery it inspires in our hero. Art may not set Salieri free, but this truly great production liberated me for an hour. Back, then, to the horrors of the bar...
Five Stars
Jeff James

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