Amadeus: When To Be "Done"

It seems unrealistic to me that someone would spend 20 years... (That’s how long I’ve been alive) editing something. I believe I would get sick of something if I were to spend that much time on it. I think after a certain amount of time, one is only micro editing, and changing a word here or there may or may not make any difference to those other than the author who are reading it. The question you have to ask yourself is how much of a difference is this actually making?? Yes, changing scenes or adding and removing entire plot points does make a difference.

On the other hand, one must edit productions for the means it is being produced. When a playwright first comes out with a play, the play will be reworked several times over just in the rehearsal process… dialogue will be changed, things that don’t make sense to a viewer will be clarified. These are things that have been drilled into our head the whole semester. It is not surprising to me that Peter Shaffer states that the movie was very different from the play of Amadeus. Movies are different from plays, because you can show so much more on the screen than you can on the stage. And yes its expected that the Broadway script would be slightly different from the other scripts, because you have a higher budget, a bigger production and the means to show things on stage that you wouldn’t be able to on a smaller stage. All of his edits seem completely verified in the means that he makes changes for what he wants to depict at a various time.

Over time, an author may want to bring out different symbolic meaning and thematic points in his or her work. At times, the playwright may want to bring out the more comedic side of their work, or the dramatic, or may add in elements of melodrama to emphasize the struggles his characters experience or whatever. He or she will find what works and what does not. Shaffer talks about adding the element of the recurring dream for Mozart. Because of this dream, it allowed him to expand “the guilt he almost surely must have felt heavily after the death of the father he had regarded all his life” and also “the whole notion of Salieri offering himself as a substitute father” This may or may not have been extremely important to the plot as a whole, but it help give depth do Mozart’s character throughout the story.

A playwright is going to be influenced by different people in different times of their lives. As Amadeus is a continually “unfinished” project, it is not surprising to me that Peter Shaffer has changed things as he is going along. When a play moves from theatre to theatre, from the stage to the screen and then back off the screen to the stage, even the playwright will have different interpretations of what is going on. Not every production is going to be the same, not ever stage direction is going to be followed exactly. As far as I am concerned, plays are things we can always learn from, because no matter how many times you read, edit, perform and design for the same show, you are going to discover something new within ever time you work with it.