Fact meets fiction as VLT stages `Amadeus'.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Very Little Theatre is opening Peter Shaffer's prize-winning "Amadeus" at 8 p.m. on Friday, just a few days before Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's 250th birthday.

OPENING THIS WEEK

The semi-fictional account of Mozart's life won the Tony Award for best play in 1981; the film version took the Oscar for best picture in 1985.

The play tells the story of Mozart and his obsessed rival, composer Antonio Salieri. It even suggests Salieri may have murdered Mozart.

This isn't necessarily true, director Jesse Lally says. The story, he says, is good theater but not a historically accurate portayal of Mozart and Salieri.

"Though there is ample evidence that their two careers intersected, there is no documentation that exposes any conflict or animosity between the two, nor is there any existing historical evidence that Salieri had a hand in Mozart's death," the director says.

Lally cast Michael Watkins as Salieri, Ben Minnis as Mozart, Cate Wolfenbarger as his wife, Constanze, and Michael Walker as Joseph II. Also in the cast are Steve Mandell, Barry Carroll, Gerald Walters, Lilli Turner, Matt Musgrove and Jeremiah Wierenga.

Performances are Friday through Sunday and Jan. 26-29, Feb. 2-5 and Feb. 10-11. Curtain is at 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and 2 p.m. on Sundays.

Tickets are $12, through the theater box office, 344-7751. Very Little Theatre is at 2350 Hilyard St.

CAPTION(S):

Ben Minnis portrays Mozart and Cate Wolfen- barger plays his wife, Constanze, in Very Little Theatre's ``Amadeus.'' The play imagines an intense rivalry between Mozart and composer Antonio Salieri. Wayne Eastburn / The Register-Guard