Recomposing Mozart?!

Just the play Amadeus. Don't worry.

I was surprised by how long he continued revising the ending of his play. It would seem like when your script is performed by IAN MCKELLEN and TIM CURRY!, it would be fairly finished. It shows such devotion to the progression of the play, not just the play itself, to continue revising the climax for new productions (and within one production as well). It is also surprising how different the characters are through the revisions. Salieri especially changes dramatically depending on whether he is stalking Mozart's apartment pretending to be a deadly apparition counting down the days to his death, dragging the Requiem from a dying Mozart to turn out as his own, or begging forgiveness and acknowledgment of the wrongs he committed against Mozart. The all fit with the play and different aspects of the character (which is amazing unto itself), but they conclude with a different person, if you will.

Considering all the nuances that a certain scene will provide for the entire play seems to be one of the most important aspects of the revisions from Amadeus. It is incredibly interesting reading about this shifting within the work. However, it does seem like editing a 10 minute play (or even 10 minutes of a larger play even if the overall plot does shift around) would revolve around a little bit different of a motive. Editing for a ten minute play (which is what I will do for my final performance), an author does not have to connect it into former character development or set up for a change or edit earlier in the script. It is most immediate, and I feel like much of my editing might focus on accentuating the immediacy of the 10 minute, streamlining the revelations to set up quickly and wrap up accurately.

In Amadeus, I was a little surprised at their shifting of music. In the theatrical version, the author seemed to mostly use Mozart's Kyrie, while the film switches it to the Confutatis. While reading the scene from the play, I pulled up the Kyrie on my iTunes and played it, to get a feeling of what it might be like with sound. Since sound is so crucial to a scene like this (and a play like this, as the author admits himself), it looses much of its impact read, although it still maintains much, which is quite the feat.

I now even more officially need to watch Amadeus.