Actor has a clue to playing Mozart

Let's just get this out of the way early. Yes, it's that Steve Burns playing Mozart in Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival's production of

Amadeus

at DeSales University, Steve of the striped shirt and earnest demeanor, "Steve" the original host of Nickelodeon's

Blue's Clues.

This fact will be initially distracting to those who have raised children during the last decade, but thankfully, it will only be briefly so. Though Burns has taken a page from the Tom Hulce method of portraying the composer, imitating the high-pitched giggle used in the film adaptation of Peter Shaffer's Tony Award-winning play, he clearly meets the demands of the role and of director Dennis Razze.

But here we are again, upstaging poor Salieri with Mozart. When Viennese court composer Antonio Salieri hears Mozart for the first time, he is horrified to realize how terribly mediocre his own work sounds by comparison, and sets out to destroy the young genius.

Turning from pious instrument of the Lord to sinner extraordinaire, he marvels that the crass, lustful Amadeus is literally "loved by God," and after comparing his own opera Les Danaides to Mozart's Don Giovanni, is left with the dawning realization that "he from the ordinary made legends, while I from legends made the ordinary." And as anyone who has ever embarked on a creative endeavor only to measure the distance between her work and that of her creative ideal knows (oh, Milan Kundera, why do you mock me so?), it can pretty much drive you nuts.

Salieri's determination to grab hold of every vice along the way and suck it dry is bolstered by Razze's direction of the script as a scenery-shredding exercise with melodrama to spare. Ryan T. Whalen has a ball with the sneering, lurking character, and his long, dark figure makes a fine counterpoint to the barely contained joyous energy emitted by Burns.

Lisa L. Zinni's costume design has all the waistcoated, brocaded gleam you could want from a court drama, and while Will Neuert's set uses surprisingly little actual furniture, projected images of some of Vienna's finest interiors and exteriors ratchet up the glamour. However, it would have been nice if Matthew Given's sound design had taken into account that this is a play about passion, but specifically, the passions aroused by music. More music and better sound would go a long way toward enhancing the experience.

Written by Peter Shaffer, directed by Dennis Razze, scenery by Will Neuert, costumes by Lisa L. Zinni, sound by Matthew Given, lighting by Eric T. Haugen.

Cast: Ryan T. Whalen (Antonio Salieri), Steve Burns (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart), Carl N. Wallnau (Joseph II), Richard Ebihara (Count Johann Killian Von Strack), Samuel Maupin (Count Franz Orsini-Rosenberg), Alan Coates (Baron Gottfried Van Swieten), Caitlin Kinsella (Katherina Cavalieri), Janine Barris (Constanze Weber).

Playing at: Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival Main Stage, DeSales University, 2755 Station Ave., Center Valley, Pa. Through July 8. Tickets $27-$45. Information: 610-282-9455 or www.pashakespeare.org

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