Let me preface this review by admitting that "Amadeus" is one of my favorite films and W.A. Mozart is my favorite composer.
I had, of course, heard of the play "Amadeus", but I'd never had the opportunity to see it onstage.
After finding out it was at the Shakespeare Theater (at Navy Pier) I logged on to buy tickets. I got a discount for becoming a member of WFMT (a $40 expense), but then I only had to pay $27.50 per ticket, a full 50% off!

After reading stellar review after stellar review, I was excited out of my mind.

I had never been to the Shakespeare Theater, but I was most impressed. A small, intimate, beautiful space, the farthest seats from the stage are just nine rows back and the balcony is just twenty feet above the floor. The lobby is gorgeous and provides spectacular views of the skyline and Lake Michigan.

Those who have seen the film know that Salieri, the protagonist, tells his story to a priest who has come to visit him in a mental hospital. In the play, Salieri uses the old opera trick to manifest his audience: he conjures you, who are, of course, not yet born. (Keep in mind, it's the late 18th Century.)

This charming and effective act begins 2.5 hours of one of the best stage productions I have ever seen.

Robert Sella as Salieri is a delightfully evil sabateur who at once makes you love and hate him.
You feel pain for him because he suffers from such an inferiority complex - you really do.
Yet he disgusts you as he works to bring to earthly ruin his musical rival.

Robbie Sublett overcomes what must have been a temptation to play the "movie" Mozart. His Mozart is no buffoon - he is filthy and crass, to be sure, but he aches throughout, and it shows. This is a much more complex character than Tom Hulce played in the film. (And I love the Tom Hulce "Mozart", too.)

The rest of the cast is just as engaging.
Salieri's "venticelli" threaten to steal many a scene with humor, and Danielle Brothers ("Teresa Salieri") is magnificent without ever uttering a line.

Though the understandably shorter-than-short pieces of Mozart the audience gets to hear will leave a fan of the composer longing for more, they are glorious.

The words of the play moved me more than I would have suspected. Salieri's loving descriptions of Mozart's music are other-worldly. His observations that no one "gets it" but him move the audience to sympathy. Salieri, the "patron saint of mediocrity" is, ultimately, anything but mediocre. While the world criticizes Mozart's music as "too this" or "not enough that", only the great Salieri is attuned enough to know that this is once-in-a-lifetime perfection.

The final ten minutes of the play are alternately heartbreaking, maddening, and hysterical. The ending, because it is live, is much more effective than the film's end, which is fantastic itself.

As Salieri spoke his absolution, I felt strangely grateful for his "blessing", and I sort of nodded to myself in agreement with this character. I felt drained and simultaneously energized, and that is a strange sensation. I wanted to run through Navy Pier shouting "GO SEE THAT PLAY!", and I also wanted to curl up with the 25th Symphony and be alone.

I intend to go back before this production leaves the Shakespeare, and I intend to visit the Shakes for future shows. (Edward II is next on the schedule.)
There are many great theaters in Chicago, but none which feels quite like this one.