Many theatregoers may overlook the fact that two of the largest repertory theatre companies in the Americas are both located in Ontario, Canada. While the Shakespeare-focused Stratford Festival is the largest, the Shaw Festival is a close second. Both present demanding schedules, highlighted by the Shaw's extensive and unparalleled nine-month operating season. Even if Stratford's productions can occasionally be hit-or-miss, the Shaw Festival’s consistently high artistic standards and unconventional programming command widespread admiration.
Now in its 64th year, the festival immerses visitors within a 19th-century heritage village notably devoid of fast-food chains—save for a solitary Starbucks. Founded to celebrate the works of George Bernard Shaw, the festival has since evolved. Its playbills now include pieces by his contemporaries alongside modern, human-centric stories that mirror Shaw’s provocative spirit by challenging societal norms and addressing social consciousness. Pride of place goes to the festival's role as the country’s leading play development hub. This summer marked the unveiling of its $30 million Artists' Village, which houses the Burton Centre for Lifelong Creativity and offers dedicated performance labs, classrooms, and year-round educational programming for youth, seniors, and the local community. The complex is also home to Canada's largest unified theatre wardrobe facility. In addition, this winter, two Shaw productions will launch a new city season across the lake at the Harbourfront Centre in Toronto.
This season, among its diverse offerings, the Shaw Festival presents two award-winning masterpieces that successfully transitioned from Broadway hits to cinematic giants: Funny Girl and Amadeus. The latter was a primary catalyst for my return to this sleepy Niagara-on-the-Lake, alongside a workshop staging of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s A New Work in Progress—a darkly satirical, adult reimagining of Cinderella which he directed himself. Much like George Bernard Shaw's 'theatre of ideas', Peter Shaffer’s work—and that of his contemporary Tom Stoppard, with its dense, intellectual style—seemed to fall out of favour during the first decade and a half of this century. In the pre-pandemic era of heightened social movements, some even dismissed the highbrow, sophisticated nature of these text-driven plays as a form of theatrical plague. Fast forward to the present day, however, and I stand firm in my belief that we are witnessing a new golden age of theatre—the stage has once again become boundary-pushing, thought-provoking, and essential. This shift is apparent not only in groundbreaking new works but also in how we re-examine, re-hear, and revise classic texts across different eras and cultures.
We all know the tales of the rivalry between Mozart and Salieri, but debating the historical accuracy of that friction feels tiresome when Shaffer’s play offers so much more. It is undeniable that unless you are well-versed in Mozart’s oeuvre, portions of this script risk sounding like musical jargon, rendering the story somewhat inaccessible to uninitiated theatregoers. Tim Carroll—the Artistic Director of the Shaw Festival—knows virtually every piece of music Mozart ever composed. He underwent a self-described crash course during one intense summer at the age of 28, when he was first entrusted to direct a staging of Amadeus. Now marking the Festival's very first production of a Shaffer play, this revival represents Carroll's third time directing the iconic piece.
As if taking cues from Mozart's music, Carroll's production echoes two striking elements: a naturalistic parody of humor and pain held in pitch-perfect balance, plus a strong visual dominance achieved through the chiaroscuro effect. The monochromatic stage—featuring a backdrop of musical staff paper and a tilted, diagonal floor designed by Judith Bowden—is quietly broody. This setup trains a sharp spotlight on the action, heightened by Kevin Lamotte's simple yet effective shadowplay lighting design. In contrast, Bowden's exquisitely detailed costumes pop with rich colour saturations—even when working principally within a palette of white and brown—adding a visual evocation of the joie de vivre of court life to the production. Carroll's directorial lens leans into the multi-layering of emotions, emphasising the harmony between absurdity and dramatic gravity rather than relying on typical theatrical histrionics. This is most apparent in his stage direction of Salieri, who avoids a sweeping, Faustian transformation when transitioning between the final night of his life and the youthful version of himself during the play's extensive flashbacks.
The brilliantly cast Venticelli, executed with wonderful poise and sharp dramatic timing by Julia Course and Sochi Fried, establishes the production's psychological insight from the very start. Appearing almost twin-like, their ability to amplify the power of rumour carries an underplayed sense of irony, while simultaneously projecting the structural weight of a two-person Greek chorus or a universal 'everyman.' Adding humorous royal grandeur to the mix is veteran ensemble member Graeme Somerville, who perfectly channels Emperor Joseph II, while Kristi Frank conveys a sturdy yet complex Constanze.
As the young Mozart, seasoned actor Michael Therriault might not always look the part of a boy wonder, but his mastery of the craft is undeniable. He delivers a true 'jackass' Mozart—contradictory in his crude immaturity and fierce conviction in his own divine gift. While the portrayal occasionally borders on caricature, Therriault infuses it with a raw naivety that makes his scenes with Salieri both believable and deeply touching. Opposite him, Tom Rooney offers a profoundly complex Salieri. While his verbal delivery lacked a bit of crisp eloquence—at least on the night I attended—the sheer emotion and sincerity underlying his performance set him apart. Every creative soul and arts lover knows the precise feeling of coming face-to-face with undeniable genius—be it a sublime operatic voice, an actor who shakes you to the core, or a dancer who captures what words cannot. As you watch Rooney’s Salieri first encounter a Mozart composition or describe The Marriage of Figaro, you cannot help but feel transported to 18th-century Vienna, experiencing the music as if you were hearing Mozart for the very first time yourself.
Anyone who witnessed Michael Longhurst's epic revival of Amadeus—complete with live, onstage orchestral accompaniment by the Southbank Sinfonia at the National Theatre in London—may believe they have seen the definitive production of the piece. To satisfy Peter Shaffer’s own description of a 'total theatre', Longhurst's production remains largely unrivalled. Yet, what Tim Carroll and his brilliant ensemble achieve at the Shaw, while perhaps structurally understated by comparison, is no small feat in its ability to move, inspire, and provoke. This production helps amplify the resonance of Salieri's closing monologue on the absolution of mediocrity, which could not be more timely. We currently live in an era where embracing the mediocre is often treated as a social equaliser—a misguided remedy for the inherent unfairness of life. At a time when content creators and true artists are lumped into the same cultural brackets, and as we are only beginning to navigate rapid-fire creativity and fast-art driven by artificial intelligence, the hollowed-out language we increasingly embrace jeopardises our appreciation for complex masterworks like Shaffer's. In the end, Salieri surrenders to the tragic truth of his own mediocrity—the painful realisation that his talent could never attain the sublime heights of Mozart's genius—yet this tale still serves as a powerful reminder of how glorious it can be to bathe in the brilliance of others. Shaffer's work urges us to be inspired and to aspire to something greater. Even if we cannot achieve that greatness ourselves, we can choose to adopt the art of everyday patronage—a concept well-known in the theatre, but one that we could desperately use in daily life.
production photos ©David Cooper
