19:30, Thu 10th – Sun 13th March 2011 at Newnham Old Labs
Lent Week 7 to Week 8

‘I was a good man, as the world calls good. What use was it to me? Goodness could not make me a good composer. Was Mozart good? Goodness is nothing in the furnace of art.’ Tonight the aging composer Salieri will take his life. Tonight intrigue, murder and the selling of souls will come to light, as Salieri implores his last audience to bear witness to his crimes. It is 1823 and the genius Mozart has been dead for thirty years, but as Salieri rakes over the jealousy of his rival the court of eighteenth century Vienna floods back into life. The Emperor Joseph and his philistine officials. The raucous prodigy with his revolutionary music, and his disrespect for all things traditional and mediocre. And amongst all this, Salieri. The only man who recognises Mozart’s genius, and the man most tortured by it.

Clare Actors presents an exciting new production of this modern classic. In parts murder mystery, biting satire and theatrical spectacle - Shaffer’s tragic masterpiece asks us finally, not what it takes to be a genius, but what it means to be a man.