"Amadeus" on Sept. 17 at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre in Chicago

At the center of Peter Shaffer's "Amadeus" is a triangle of relationships, among the anti-hero Salieri, God, and Mozart. Salieri tells us that he begged God to allow him to be God's servant. He wanted to be made a composer and God, he tells the audience, made him one. Then Mozart, an upstart 20-something, comes along and Salieri realizes that his own music pales in comparison to Mozart's. He is both deeply moved by Mozart's music and uncontrolably envious of his talent and what he believes will be the immortality of his music. He pleads with God to allow him to be the instrument through which God creates one piece of music comparable to Mozart's but it never happens. Consequently, Salieri goes into battle with God but does so by ruining Mozart's career.

Salieri is constantly surprised that God never stops him. Instead, Salieri continues to collect accolades and his fortune grows as Mozart grows increasingly poorer and sicker as the result of his cunning. Mozart, he tells us, is the instrument through which he does battle with God. By ruining Mozart, the true instrument of God's beauty, he is getting back at God. The play raises the question of how one sustains such a relationship with God? Can it ever be done but through our relationship with others? If Salieri says he is fighting with God, we only see the wounds manifested on Mozart's body. That is the issue with maintining a relationship with a disembodied being; that relationship can only be manifested in human form. God's stand-in is Mozart. He is the cause and the target of Salieri's, no matter what he calims his real motivations are.

In the end, it turns out that what Salieri wants most, if he can't have divine talent, is immortality. Fame he's got and it's not enough. And since he can't have Mozart's talent, he decides to at least settle for fame as the man who kills Mozart. It is reputed that Mozart might have been poisoned by Salieri. In his old age, he cries out Mozart's name and begs his forgiveness but all of this is done just to start rumors. Knowing that his servants will spread the story and that the townspeople are gossips, he counts on the rumors to culminate in the belief that he murdered the genius Mozart. Then he tries to kill himself but fails. He is the high priest of mediocrity, he tells the audience, and we are his followers.

This is a serious accusation against the audience. Like the noblemen in the play who never acknowledge Mozart's genius but worship Salieri's mediocrity, the audience is implicaed as being unable to recognize real art and relying on what is fashionale, a particularly salient point at Chicago Shakespare Theatre. As I sat in my seat and listened to the wealthy patrons who surrounded me in the theater (this was opening night and geared at funders), I knew that Schaffer was speaking directly to the audience, accusing it. People around me audibly shared their agreement when Salieri, who addresses the audience directly, spews forth the most obvious and inane claims about our lack of understanding of art. At the end of the play, he says that as the priest of mediocrity he absolves the audience of its own mediocrity. One has to wonder, though, whether he is a priest with any power to absolve us. Having Salieri absovle us is perhaps the most brutal accusation from the playwright. Schaffer allows us to see Salieri for the pathetic being he is over time. For a while we think he's funny, then we think he's dangerous, then we realize that he's failed himself in every way. Schaffer has no sympathy for him and in aligning the audience with Salieri, he's making an unsympathetic accusation of the audience. During intermission, an audience member was praising the performance of the actor playing Salieri. He commented that this actor's portrayal was so funny when it's usually so dark in other productions of this play. Well, it's a funny role and I've only ever seen it played that way. I think he must have confused the play with Milos Forman's movie. This kind of pretension is perhaps indicative of the behavior Schaffer is ridiculing.

I last saw a production of this play at the Wilma Theatre in Philadelphia a little less than two years ago. It was a highly stylized version done all in black and white with lots of patent leather clothes and boots, somewhere between baroque and punk rock -- the kind of production we might call edgy. Sadly, it was dull, dull, dull. While the director had gone to great lenghts to make it look oppulent and "edgy," he had spent too little time explorng the humanity and the play's themes. Thankfully, Gary Griffin hasn't fallen into that trap. The acting is very, very good and the direction emphsizes the humanity of the characters. The thing I've largely admired Griffin for is his reliance on the humanity of characters and the meaning of plays rather than relying on large production values, something Chicago Shakespeare Theatre itself is too often guilty of doing. I'm not sure why Barbara Gaines, the artistic director, chose this play. It's good but it certainly isn't timeless. Still, Griffin's production has a lot of integrity. He's chosen to stage most of it on the thrust so that the action takes place in the audience rather than on the proscenium, which would have distanced the action from the audience. And, in a play that suggests that the audience members are followers of Salieri the Mediocre, it seems appropriate that he's choosen such a staging.

"Hair" by the Public Theatre in Central Park on August 16 in NY

I'm a huge fan of the movie "Hair" but I've never really taken the play seriously. I've credited my love of the movie to my love of the music, which I've always believed to be moving despite a fairly problematic script. I've also liked productions of the play but also found them problematic. They've always seemed like a hybrid between a concert and play. More of a conceit and less of a coherent play. And, again, it's mostly the music that I've found moving.

Turns out the the Public Theatre premiered "Hair" 40 years ago. Like "A Chorus Line," the play premiered at the Public and then went to Broadway. For its 40th anniversary, the theater included in its summer Shakespeare in the Park season with an electrifying production. It was very nearly flawless. This production was incredibly well-thought out. Meaning was wrung out of every lyric and every bit of dialogue and they were all organized into a coherent whole, something I've alays thought was impossible.

Leading the cast was Jonathan Groff, who played melancholy Melchor in "Spring Awakening." His performance as Claude had wonderful depth and integrity and he's an incredible singer. There are two other standouts. One is the woman who sang "Frank Mills" with wonderful vulnerability. Her voice is strong and sweet and by the time she gets to the end of the song, you know she's realized that Frank Mills is not coming back, not because he doesn't know where she is but because he doesn't care to. It's a sweetly sad moment. The other stand out is the guy who plays Woof, another fantastic actor and singer. The only disappointment, and it's not much of one, is Will Swenson who plays Berger. It's not that he's bad, it's just that he's not as strong as eveyone else.

I won't say much about the plot of "Hair" as we all already know the story. I will say that the second act is devasating. When the tribe goes to protest in front of the induction center, hoping to prevent Claude from showing up for the draft, they are frantic when they can't find him. Turns out that he's already inside and his fantasy about dodging the draft by becoming invisible has been transformed to mental illness from emotional strain and he comes to believe that he really is invisible. He goes off to war and, of course, is killed. At the end of the show, when the cast sings "let the sinshine in" it is a moving plead and a prayer to the audience to replace war with beauty and life. The woman who sanf "Frank Mills" weeps with pleading. As the cast leaves the stage, we're left with a dark and solitary image of Claude's corpse laying on an American flag.

But wait, there's more. The cast comes back for the curtain call with a refrain of "Let the Sunshine" and invites the audience up to the stage. Its meaning is transformed from a plea to end such violence to a celebration of life. The entire stage is packed with adience members, who are singing, dancing, jumping about, and hugging the cast members. The plea for life results in a manifestation of it in the theater. No one sitting in the seats leaves the theater until the very end. Instead, they sing at their seats (after all, it turns out we all know these songs and can sing along) while the others sing on stage. The show is transformed from an elegy to a celebration of life. I've never seen anything like it.

"A Day In Dig Nation" by Flying Carpet Theatre at PS122 on August 14th in NY, NY

I find myself constantly attracted to and repelled by PS122. On the one hand, if you want to see something experimental, it's the first place one thinks to go. On the other hand, there's a damn good chance it's gonna suck. God knows, I've had my share of disappointment there. One puts up with all of the losses in hopes of seeing a great show every now and then. And that prince of a show makes up for all the frogs. Such is the name of the game.

"A Day In Dig Nation" is a one man show featuring Michael McQuilken. It opens with his parents arguing over what to name him. His mother insists on naming him Rex and his father insists that Rex is a dog's name. The father puts up a good and exasperatedly funny fight but is eventually beaten down by his mother. Each parent is just a voice coming from either end of the stage and poor baby Rex is just a pair of exaggerated and expressive eyes that moves from side to side, afraid and following the parent who is talking. It's a funny and entertaining start to the show.

Part of the joy of the show is McQuilken, who is good at comedy, drama, singing, and even tap dancing. Witnessing the opening, one fears he might be an actor with a schtick but I was pleasantly surprised by his range. Rex is a character who is emotionally cut off from the world. At one point he acts as someone's personal hero and when she tries to thank him, he shrinks from her attention, finding it impossible to believe that someone wants nothing else but to thank him. He's deathly afraid of her. Their conversation is the weightiest moment of the show and McQuiken handles it very well. He's more than a one trick pony.

The story itself chronicles Rex's exile from human emotion. He's surrounded by and in a way enveloped by technology. Instead of a set, the production has video projections that serve as the set. In one of the scenes, a man is trapped in a hiding place in a post apocalyptic world. He hears the calls of a woman who is desperately searching for another survivor of whatever catastrophe has caused the world's ruin. He can't bring himself to communicate with this woman and thus loses her, listening as she finds another male survivor and connects with him. This man might be a character from one of Rex's video games but it's also Rex. Thus, when the woman Rex has saved from drowning comes to thank him, one fears that Rex will not be able to talk with her.

This production was a mixture of hi tech sound and video, a solid, script, and good acting. It's a modest production, not slick at all. Yet, it's a winning combination and enough to get me to PS122 the next time I'm in New York.

"Fela!" on August 13th at 37 Arts in New York, NY

This new musical is choreographed and directed by Bill T. Jones. The good news, which we pretty much could have guessed, is that the music and choreography are fantastic. After all, the music is Fela Kuti's and the choreography is by Bill T. Jones. The not-so-good news, which we also could have guessed, is that the direction isn't nearly as strong. The wild card is the book, which is written by Jim Lewis, who is presently working with The Civilians. Sadly, that's the weakest part of the show.

I could get into a discussion about the evolution of the jukebox musical and how it's led us to this place but I won't. I will say that the conceit of the play is that Fela is telling his life story at his final concert in Nigeria. His compound has been ransacked, his wives raped and beaten, and his mother murdered. The concert setting is a vehicle for Fela to sing his greatest hits and to put them in a political context. While this is an easy way to show off the music, it's a bit of a copout and doesn't make for very compelling drama. If there is a theme, and if there is it's not well developed, it's that in the face of political adversity we should keep our resolve and continue to fight the good fight. While the story is poor, I will say that I heard "Zombie" in a whole new way. The production wrung out the meaning of the song.

As someone writing a personal critique of the play, the weakness of the script matters. As a guy who just went to see it, it barely matters. The music is fantastic and it's a joy to hear it played and sung live. Bill T. Jones' choreogrpahy is impressive and lots of fun. In a way it reminds me of Ron Brown's choreography in its fusion of traditional and African and Western movement. While Ron Brown's accomplishment is that he combines African and African American movement seamlessly, Bill T. Jones' is that he adds geometry to it. If you're a fan of Afro-pop and dance, this show is a blast. I enjoyed it tremendously. From the reaction of the audience, I think the entire theater enjoyed it. And from the fact that it's been extended for a couple of months, I think people continue to enjoy it.