Amadeus October 10, 2008

'Amadeus' is Peter Schaffer's drama about God's capricious bestowal of talent. Antonio Salieri is intelligent, educated, industrious and talented. Amadeus Mozart is crude, puerile, scattered, unreliable and a genius. And poor Salieri is the only one talented enough to know the difference. It haunts him. Salieri narrates as an extended confession of his raging envy. He does all he can to doom Mozart's career and promote his own, and he succeeds at that while withering his own soul. But did he poison Mozart?