The PopCulteer
January 23, 2026
Amadeus, by Peter Shaffer, is an incredible stage play. It depicts the rivalry between the prodigy, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and his contemporary, Antoino Salieri in 18th century Vienna. The story is textured and compelling and may be one of the greatest literary depictions of jealousy consuming a person ever created.
It’s also not even remotely historically accurate. Do not fool yourself into thinking that the depictions of these characters are in any way a reflection of the people on whom they are based.
It is a work of fiction, inspired by an earlier work of fiction, which was itself a rather ridiculous and sensationalistic embodiment of scandalous rumors that were not exactly rooted in credibility.
If you know that going in, you will enjoy the play for what it is, which is pretty damned brilliant.
As for why I’m mentioning it, well, over the last several weeks I’ve been exposed to three distinct versions of the play, and I thought it might be fun to compare them.
Last month, when I was in Chicago, Mel and I saw a spectacular production of Amadeus at Steppenwolf Theater. Directed by Robert Falls, with Ian Barford as Salieiri and David Darrow as Mozart, this production was my first time seeing the work performed live (sadly I missed a legendary 1980s local production starring my friend, Jim Wolfe), and I was blown away.
Performed in the round in the new Ensemble Theater at Steppenwolf, this production was downright cinematic in its staging, with world-class performances and, to be honest, I’d planned to write a much longer review, but…this production closes this weekend, and tickets have been damned near impossible to come by, so I just didn’t get around to it.
Too many obituaries and other things to write kept distracting me.
Needless to say, if you were lucky enough to see this production, it will stay with you for a long, long time.
And that fact actually came in handy because, just a few weeks later, thanks to some friends in the UK, I was able to watch the Sky mini-series, Amadeus, adapted by Joe Barton from Shaffer’s play, and spread out over five episodes.
It’s sort of appropriate because Shaffer’s play was based on the 1830 play, Mozart and Salieri , written by Russian poet, Alexander Pushkin. And that play inspired an 1897 operetta by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.
The story, about Salieri conspiring to hurt the career of, and eventually kill Mozart, which historians widely regard as bunk, has certainly gotten around.
Shaffer was in no way faithful to Pushkin’s original three-man short play, which ended with Salieri poisoning Mozart on stage. Likewise, Barton has made major changes to the story for his adaptation. The Venticelli, who were brilliantly gender-flipped in the Steppenwolf production, are completely absent in Barton’s version.
We get a lot more detail in some places. The role of Emperor Joseph II is greatly expanded, with a bit more historical accuracy than the rest of the work. What exactly happens between Salieri and Mozart’s wife, Costanze, is considerably different. Some historical details and dates are inserted in an attempt to lend more credibility to the story, and the entire final episode is an epilogue that, for the most part, has no parallel to Shaffer’s play.
In fact, Alexander Pushkin appears as a character in the final episode, securing the “confession” of Salieri from Constanze Mozart. This almost certainly never happened. We even get a glimpse of Shaffer’s original manuscript being typed.
Still, as a work of fiction, and an expansion of Shaffer’s play, Barton does a decent job of crafting a classy-looking mini-series out of the material. It does not compare to the Steppenwolf production, but it holds together pretty well until the final episode, and the performances are quite good throughout.
Both the Steppenwolf production and the Sky mini-series practiced “colorblind” casting. In no way did this lessen the Steppenwolf production. You just got pulled into the production so quickly and powerfully that you just didn’t notice that the cast was not comprised entirely of wypipo.
With the Sky mini series, it was more jarring. I don’t know if it was the intimacy of watching a cinematic production with close-ups, or the casting choices themselves, but there were brief moments when I was taken out of the world they were trying to create for a second or two. Luckily, the performers were all strong enough to overcome this, but it did distance me from the show momentarily.
Still, great performances by the likes of Paul Bettany, Will Sharpe and Gabrielle Creevy make the mini-series well worth watching.
After watching the Amadeus mini-series, I got curious and dug up a copy of the 1984 movie version, directed by Milos Forman, and starring F. Murray Abraham as Salieri and Thomas Hulce as Mozart.
This too is a terrific adaptation. It took home eight Oscars, including one for Shaffer’s screenplay, based on his play. Abraham edged out Hulce for Best Actor.
And the last time I watched this version was more than forty years ago.
It still looks incredible. Abraham’s peformance is revelatory. The direction and cinematography are among the best of the last century.
However, watching it now, Hulce sort of ruined it for me. First of all, while I was momentarily taken out of the experience with the casting of the mini-series, every time Hulce was on screen in this version my brain was yelling “Hey, That’s PINTO from Animal House!”
Second all of, that laugh he used as Mozart…every time he did it, I wanted Salieri to kill him even more. Thank God that David Darrow and Will Sharpe chose not to emulate that sitcom-level guffaw. Having seen their performances made me take a much harsher look at Hulce.
The play and the movie run around three hours each. The mini-series runs for five episodes, each just under an hour.
So, that’s a lot of time invested in watching, and then writing about a play which, admittedly, is based on a premise that puts the “fiction” into “historical fiction.”
Still, Shaffer’s play is something that should be experienced, even if you can only see the movie. The mini-series works better as a a dessert to the main course of seeing the original play. Four of the five episodes are great, with the finale seeming a bit stretched-out to me. We get a much more full representation of Costanze and Emperor Joseph II, but in some ways the mini-series veers even farther from reality than the play does.
Of course, the real challenge after watching Amadeus in any form is getting that damned song by Falco out of your head.
That is this week’s PopCulteer. Check back for fresh content every day and all our regular features.
So your humble blogger, against all advice, made the trip to Louisville last Friday for the first day of Kenuckiana’s GI Joe Winterfest, and despite the looming awful weather, we had a great time.
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