ALL THE RIGHT NOTES; STORY OF MOZART AND SALIERI IN `AMADEUS' STRIKES A CHORD WITH PLAY'S STARS.

Byline: Reed Johnson Staff Writer

Talk about damning with faint praise - or praising with faint damns. Many critics can't seem to do otherwise when discussing Peter Shaffer's intellectual thriller ``Amadeus.''

``A limited and often maddening play,'' was how the Observer newspaper of London recently described Shaffer's 1979 work in an otherwise positive review of the new Sir Peter Hall revival that opens Sunday at the Ahmanson Theatre.

``A middlebrow masterpiece'' declared the Daily Telegraph, while the Times of London lauded Hall's production but dismissed the play itself as ``a pretentious melodrama.''

Such descriptions befuddle and dismay David Suchet and Michael Sheen, the two acclaimed British actors who co-star in Hall's restaging of the early '80s hit, in which human ambition and envy, personified by the second-rate composer Antonio Salieri, collides with the divine genius of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

``He always takes a critical bashing,'' Suchet says of the playwright. ``I don't know why, I really don't. (Maybe) because people see in his plays similar things going through all his plays. They're extraordinarily theatrical. And maybe the press doesn't like that. They want something quieter and more intuited.

``But it seems to me, right (through) the early days when Peter started writing plays and they were put on, the press say one thing and the audience ignores them.''

Indeed, they often do.

Since his first produced work, ``Five Finger Exercise,'' in 1958, Shaffer's plays have been frequently staged on both sides of the Atlantic. In addition to the success of ``Amadeus,'' Shaffer has developed a substantial following with thoughtful yet unapologetically colorful pieces such as ``The Royal Hunt of the Sun,'' ``Black Comedy,'' ``Lettice and Lovage'' and ``Equus,'' which was made into a 1977 film starring Richard Burton.

A motif running through many of his works is the struggle between creativity and mediocrity, the risky imaginative flights of the artistic temperament vs. the mundane conformity of the mob.

It seems particularly ironic that ``Amadeus,'' the Shaffer play that deals most explicitly with this theme, should have taken such a critical drubbing. Or perhaps, Sheen suggests, that's precisely why ``Amadeus'' makes some spectators uncomfortable.

``I think one way of looking at this play is that Salieri is a critic,'' he says. ``There's a part of Salieri in this play that has a relationship to Mozart of a critic - a great critic, but a critic nonetheless. Or even a journalistic type person who is on the outside of this great talent and is following his career and is having to deal with what it makes him feel. And that must be very difficult: for someone to speak for the group of people who happen to be the group of people who come and pass verdict on (``Amadeus''). It can't be a coincidence.''

One thing the critics seem happily agreed on is that both Suchet, best known to U.S. audiences for his TV portrayals of detective Hercule Poirot, and Sheen, an accomplished British stage actor with several small film roles to his credit (``Mary Reilly,'' ``Othello''), give exceptional performances as Salieri and Mozart, respectively.

Although a far larger audience knows ``Amadeus'' as a movie than a play, both actors think that could work to the advantage of the current production, which opened a year ago at London's Old Vic.

``I think this particular story works best in the theater, because it was written for the theater, even though it made a great film,'' Sheen says. ``So I think (the current revival) is timely in the respect that, given that people think they know what it is through the film, then they'll get a very, very different experience - and I think a more satisfying theatrical experience - from coming to see it in the theater. I think that can work for us, as long as people don't think, `Oh, I've see that, because I've seen the film.' ''

Constructed as an old man's memory play, ``Amadeus'' takes us into the glittering high society of late 18th-century Vienna, where the Italian-born Salieri and the Austrian-born Mozart both were fixtures in Emperor Joseph II's court.

As if pleading his case in a court of law, Salieri relates his tragic tale of the bitter rivalry he felt toward Mozart; of his feeling that God had betrayed and mocked him through Mozart's incomparably sublime talent; and of his determination to avenge this insult by poisoning his rival, an event whose reality has long been a source of heated scholarly debate.

Originally produced at London's National Theatre, ``Amadeus'' went on to Broadway, where it won the Tony Award and ran for more than 1,000 performances. Director Milos Forman adapted it into an 1984 movie, which won eight Academy Awards, including best picture, director, actor (F. Murray Abraham as Salieri), screenplay and art direction.

Both Suchet and Sheen believe ``Amadeus'' works better on stage than celluloid.

To begin with, Suchet says, one of the play's main dramatic conceits is that Salieri imagines himself involved in a running feud with God. In the stage version, the embittered composer communicates his grievances directly to the Almighty. He also vents his emotions via soliloquy to the audience.

In the movie version, by contrast, Salieri mentions God only a couple of times and reveals his transgressions against Mozart in a confession to a priest. The movie audience thus doesn't get the same sense of eavesdropping on Salieri's Iago-like inner machinations, Suchet thinks.

``And if I remember correctly, the music in the film was almost nonstop,'' Suchet continues. ``Mozart's music went right through the whole film. Well, as effective as that was, I do believe that in the theater it's more effective because it stops, and you go into your normal dialogue. And when it comes back, it has a purpose for coming back. It's not just there as a background. Salieri calls certain pieces back for a particular purpose, and therefore it's very poignant when it does come - and very powerful, very moving.''

A compactly built man of medium height, with intense, expressive eyes, Suchet says ``Amadeus'' made ``a huge impression'' on him when he first saw it performed in 1980 with Paul Scofield as Salieri and Simon Callow as Mozart.

``I came out (of the theater), and I said to my wife, `This is why I joined.' It had that effect. And at that time it had an effect on many actors, because it was so wonderfully theatrical and yet emotional. I came out thinking I'd seen total theater.''

``This play has been an extraordinary journey for me, in the role, because the role actually touches on very, very deep emotions of envy, greed - there's lust, there's all those (things), there's religion, there's being let down by God. It's a huge emotional journey one has to take with this role. And these things do leave their mark.''

Sheen, whose look and Northern-accented speech are wilder and woollier than Suchet's, says a key to playing his character is to keep his performance ``very light around the edges.''

``The director, Sir Peter Hall, wanted to create what he calls a very Mozartean feel to the production, so that there are huge reservoirs of emotion there, but you just play very lightly on the surface,'' Sheen explains. ``And through playing very lightly and keeping a sense of delicacy, a great kind of control, these huge kind of geysers of emotion that are underneath can just erupt now and again, and you're sort of taken by surprise by it. You shouldn't be aware, I don't think, that you're watching a tragedy.''

Consequently, Sheen says, he himself will sometimes have a surprisingly strong reaction to hearing Mozart's music on the radio, or reading something about the composer by chance.

``I'll suddenly feel an immense kind of sadness for what happens in the story, because when I'm on stage, I can't afford to feel it then.''

For all its beauty and dazzling virtuosity, both actors say, Mozart's music is unnerving because, nearly 200 years after it was first performed, it still has the power to push us beyond what is safe and normal and - well, ``middlebrow.''

``Great, great art at its best will always unsettle,'' Sheen says. ``Even if it's on an unconscious level, you think, `The person who did this was a mortal person like me,' and it does sort of throw it onto you, `Well, why can't I do that? Is that included in me? Do I have a part of me that is potentially able to create this? Or are those people another race?' And it's unsettling, I think, in some way.''

THE FACTS

What: ``Amadeus.''

Where: Ahmanson Theatre, Music Center of Los Angeles County, 135 N. Grand Ave.

When: Opens 4 p.m. Sunday. Regular performances at 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays. Additional performances at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 17 and 24, Nov. 7 and 21; 8 p.m. Nov. 22; 2 p.m. Oct. 28, Nov. 11 and 26.

Tickets: $25 to $55. Call [phone]; taperahmanson.com on the Web.

CAPTION(S):

5 Photos

Photo: (1--2--Cover--Color) Michael Sheen, left, and David Suchet in `Amadeus'

Inset: Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer

(3) Both David Suchet (as Salieri) and Michael Sheen (as Mozart) think that ``Amadeus'' succeeds far better as a stage play than as a movie - and it's a good thing, too, inasmuch as they're the stars of the L.A. production.

(4) `This play has been an extraordinary journey for me, in the role, because the role actually touches on very, very deep emotions of envy, greed - there's lust ... there's religion, there's being let down by God.'

David Suchet

Salieri in ``Amadeus''

(5) `Great, great art at its best will always unsettle.'

Michael Sheen

Mozart in ``Amadeus,'' on the composer's staying power

Hans Gutknecht/Staff Photographer