Masaryk University of Brno Faculty of Education

MASARYK UNIVERSITY OF BRNO FACULTY OF EDUCATION

Bachelor thesis

Brno 2014

Tomáš Kvítek Masaryk University Faculty of Education Department of English Language and Literature

Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus and The Royal Hunt of the Sun

Bachelor Thesis

Brno 2014

Supervisor: Written by: Mgr. Lucie Podroužková, Ph.D. Tomáš Kvítek

Anotace

Hlavním záměrem této bakalářské práce je analyzovat postavy Wolfganga Mozarta, Antonia Salieriho a Francisca Pizarra ve dvou divadelních hrách významného anglického dramatika a scénáristy Petera Shaffera, jehož díla Amadeus a Královský Hon na Slunce významně přispěly do britského kulturního dědictví. Úvodní část představuje Petera Shaffera v kontextu postmoderního britského divadla, a následně zmiňuje hry, které byly adaptovány pro české divadlo. Primárně však tato práce zkoumá osobnostní charakteristiky hlavních protagonistů, jejich postoje a myšlenky z hlediska jejich sociálního a kulturního zázemí. Práce také kriticky nahlíží na dobu imperialismu z hlediska postmodernismu v kontextu těchto her.

Annotation

The main objectives of this thesis is to analyse the characters of Wolfgang Mozart, Antonio Salieri and Fancisco Pizarro in two plays written by an eminent English playwright and screenwriter Peter Shaffer whose masterpieces Amadeus and The Royal Hunt of The Sun have significantly contributed to British cultural heritage. The introductory part places Peter Shaffer in the context of post-modern British theatre and subsequently, introduces those of his plays that have been adapted for Czech theatres. Primarily, however, it examines the protagonists’ personal characteristics, their attitudes and thoughts within a perception of their social and cultural background. It also conducts a critical look into the era of imperialism from the perspective of post-modernism within the context of the plays.

Klíčová slova

Divadlo postmodernismu, české divadlo, Amadeus, fikce, ironie, dialog, průměrnost, postava Salieriho, postava Mozarta, zrada, žárlivost, zavedená etiketa, rivalita, touha, společnost, individualismus, kolektivismus, význam Boha, kontext, kolonialismus, imperialismus

Key words

Postmodern theatre, Czech theatre, Amadeus, fiction, irony, dialogue, mediocrity, character of Salieri, character of Mozart, betrayal, jealousy, well-established etiquette, rivalry, desire, society, individualism, collectivism, meaning of God, context, colonialism, imperialism

Declaration

Hereby I declare that I have compiled this thesis on my own and all the sources of information used in the thesis are listed in the references.

Brno, 19 April 2014 ………………………………

Tomáš Kvítek

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank to my supervisor Mgr. Lucie Podroužková, Ph.D. for her valuable comments, inspiring and positive attitude.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction ...... 7 1.1. Introduction to Peter Shaffer ...... 7 1.2. The plays in the context of postmodern British theatre ...... 8 1.3. Peter Shaffer in the context of the Czech theatre ...... 12 2. Introduction to Amadeus ...... 14 2.1. Facts and fiction in Amadeus ...... 14 2.2. What the author says about the play ...... 15 3. The meaning of irony in Amadeus ...... 16 4. The role of dialogue in Amadeus ...... 18 5. The characters of Salieri and Mozart ...... 20 6. The role of dual male characters ...... 24 7. The social issue and religion ...... 28 7.1. The characters in the context of a modern society ...... 31 7.2. High and low-context society ...... 33 7.3. The setting into unfamiliar environment ...... 36 7.4. The meaning of God ...... 38 8. The plays in the context of postmodernism ...... 41 8.1. The postmodern view of cultural dominance ...... 41 8.2. The Royal Hunt of the Sun and Joseph Conrad’s Marlow ...... 42 8.3. The colonizers versus the colonized ...... 43 8.4. The role of the hero ...... 45 8.5. Shaffer’s plays in the context of Edward Said’s critical thinking ...... 46 9. Conclusion ...... 50 Notes ...... 53 Works cited ...... 54 Abstract ...... 55

1. Introduction This thesis tries to conduct a research into two plays by the British postmodern playwright Peter Shaffer Amadeus and The Royal Hunt of the Sun. It especially focuses on analysing the characteristic features and possible motifs of the main protagonists, and it further integrates the plays into the concept of postmodernism with the perspective of sovereignty and dominance of one culture over other cultures. Whereas many theatre-conscious people are familiar with the play Amadeus, which has gained popularity owing to the film adaptation by the director Milos Forman, only some know the name which stands behind this masterpiece. For the purpose of the contextual comprehension I have decided to include a brief biographical survey of the playwright’s life and career in my paper.

1.1. Introduction to Peter Shaffer

Peter Shaffer is still an active English playwright and screenwriter of numerous award- winning plays, several of which have been filmed. He is an internationally recognized and highly acclaimed writer of contemporary British theatre. His work has been consistently performed over fifty years on commercial, metropolitan, professional and amateur stages worldwide.

Shaffer was born to a Jewish family in 1926 in Liverpool as a twin to his brother, playwright Anthony Shaffer. Educated in Liverpool and later in London he subsequently gained a scholarship to Trinity College in Cambridge, where he studied history. During the Second World War he spent three years working at a coal mine and this experience gave him “enormous sympathy and feeling of outrage in contemplating how a lot of people had to spend their lives” (Kavanagh 5). Simultaneously he embarked on a commencing career as a writer of detective stories together with his brother, the first of the three novels The Woman in the Wardrobe, published in 1951 under a pseudonym ‘Peter Anthony’. Asked later why he was reluctant to publish the story under his real name Peter Shaffer responded: “I had a sense that I wasn't going to continue as a detective writer [...] I just felt that I would rather reserve whatever writing I did of a more serious nature for my own name” (Kavanagh 5).

The following year Shaffer left England to live and work in New York where he seemed to be drifting from one job to another including a salesman in a department store, a bookseller and a librarian in the New York Public Library. Feeling a little hopelessly, Shaffer was gaining

7 courage to start a career as a full-time writer. He had to, however, overcome his father’s conviction that proper work involved a serious profession and writing was considered something like an interest. As a result Shaffer commented: “I denied myself the pleasure of writing plays for a very long time” (Kavanagh 5). Although in no interview has Shaffer admitted the resentment about his father’s attitude, it might be assumed that the motif of dominant fathers that impose their visions on their adolescent sons that appears in his plays (in the characters including Stanley Harrington, Frank Strang and Leopold Mozart) has its origins here.

When he returned back to England in 1954 he began to work for the music publishers Boosey and Hawkes. By then he, however had realized that if did not commence a career as a writer immediately he would never do. He resigned his job and decided to “live now on my literary wits” (Kavanagh 6). Living on small money as a literary critic and allowance from his father, he began to write in earnest and soon was rewarded for his efforts by the sale of his television play The Salty Land to ITV. Within following two years he got his another detective novel published and sold his plays to BBC television and radio. This period in Shaffer’s life can be regarded as time when his career as a playwright was in progress.

1.2. The plays in the context of postmodern British theatre

This part of my thesis introduces Peter Shaffer in the context of British post-modern theatre. A suitable source elaborating this topic appears to be the publication Peter Shaffer: Theatre and Drama by Madeleine MacMurraugh-Kavanagh who had the chance the meet the author personally in London in autumn 1996 and with whom she spared the time on series of interviews discussing his work (xiii).

The author highlights Shaffer’s control over dramatic dialogue and a verbal skilfulness that remained one of his stylistic features. His dramatic plot “satisfies the hunger for crafted dialogue that leaves his audience craving for more” (Kavanagh1). According to the author, Shaffer’s contribution to the contemporary theatre lies mainly in his insistence to follow the principles of well-made play where structure and development are central concerns of the writer. His plays are, in addition, upgraded with an integration of musical sensibility, which the playwright reveals in a statement “I like plays to be like fugues – all the themes should come together in the end” (Kavanagh 2).

Another dramatic technique that pleases the audience in theatres is Shaffer’s ability to weave a convincing story that involves the audience in dramatic suspense, human identification and complexity of conflicts. The playwright is fully aware that story-telling is central to the dramatist's art, stating “It is my object to tell tales; to conjure up the spectres of horror and happiness [...] to perturb and make gasp: to please and make laugh: to surprise” (Kavanagh 2). It is, therefore, the grip of the audience that serves with the artistic experience of unforgettable performance. Furthermore, the integration of satire and irony appears natural to Shaffer’s style, which I develop later in my thesis.

All these aspects of Shaffer’s dramatic narration seem to contribute to the fact that his writings move easily between theatre, paper edition, cinema and television as media the author respects automatically. Shaffer’s story-telling is, however, rejecting easy and comfortable expectations the audiences may have from his work and confuses their preconceptions. He takes a dramatic risk, and challenges their attitudes with unexpected dramatic moments or rather unfamiliar themes.

Apart from ‘dramatic craft’ Shaffer handles strong theatrical intuition. Although his masterpieces have been presented in different media, he is above all a playwright for theatre, an environment where his writings acquire the right meaning as stated by Shaffer’s desire to “make theatre, to make something that could only happen on stage” (Kavanagh 3). The author states the importance of the psychological and emotional effects, writing:

With the ability to utilize every resource available to him in this arena (lighting, music, choreography, communal atmosphere, and so on), Shaffer involves his audience imaginatively in his drama where metaphor, allusion and illusion prevail. For this playwright, it is not enough that the audience should respond purely intellectually to his work; it is his desire that they should be caught up in, and surrender to, the magic and the mystery that differentiates live theatre from any other dramatic experience (Kavanagh 3)

Before showing on stage, Shaffer had to prepare the platform as to become respected playwright in academic (theatrical) world. Shaffer’s early plays assigned him to a position where he could launch himself into theatrical arena which he had always considered to be his

9 fertile land. These early works made in 1950s included themes on social realism, though, in Balance of Terror, a story about a cold war espionage, Shaffer demonstrated his ability to come up with an attractive genre. Also his second play The Salt Land, a classical tragedy constructed on the events of modern Israel, was regarded as an interesting attempt preparing the path for his later work. Apart from the expansion of dramatic writing, this was also the time of media boom, and radio and television provided a training ground to these young dramatists where they gained experience before they embarked on theatre production. This time could be considered as the ‘real’ start of Peter Shaffer’s career as a dramatic writer (Kavanagh 6).

All these areas of Shaffer’s dramatic component help to understand the popularity of his plays over such a long time. Simultaneously, this success goes hand to hand with negative, especially certain British critics’ reviews adopting a suspicious stance on intellectual hollowness and tendency to intrude on the audience. As a result, there have been voices accusing Shaffer of superficiality and ‘popularism’.

Moreover, his success has been attributed to the directors, namely John Dexter, with indications that these theatrical masters have continuously concealed the weaknesses of the plays. The playwright has also been charged with blinding the audience with conceitedness and abuse of the historical facts (Kavanagh 3).

This antipathy has further grown into split between the audience who enthusiastically appreciated the dramatist and the critics who hastily depreciated them. The situation has evolved to the degree that any admiration of the playwright has been considered by these critics as blind following a misguided mass deceived by rhetoric and stage effects. In addition to this, the author implies that since Shaffer’s plays lack the ‘political’ motif, compering to authors like David Hare or Howard Brenton, the critics have withheld their approbation as if politics should be the critical ‘standard’ by which all else is measured. Generally speaking, Kavanagh critically views the suspicious atmosphere of any commercial success in Great Britain and implies that this is the reason why Shaffer may have received less critical reactions in The United States. For Shaffer himself, however, popular success simply means that “the problems one has tried to solve have in some ways been solved', and 'validation' has resulted” (Kavanagh 4).

However the author stands up for Peter Shaffer, she does not argue that there are no weak elements in his plays referring to the failure of The Battle of Shrivings as the author’s first

10 commercial flop. Shaffer then alerted to the 'danger in my work of theme dictating event', while “a strong impulse to compose rhetorical dialogue was beginning to freeze my characters into theoretical attitudes” (Kavanagh 4). Concerning the critical reviews, however, it is the audiences in the theatre what finally maters to the playwright rather than newspapers or journals. Shaffer comments that his drama is written “for the public”, and is realized “with the public” (Kavanagh 5)

The comprehension of Shaffer’s work in the context of postmodern theatre lies in the fact that he is introduced as one of the authors who deliberately broke the established well-made play rules and turned to more expansive approach of dramatization (Elsom 96).

Shaffer’s success came in 1958 with his well-made play Five Fingers Exercise concerning various emotional conflicts in a household environment and focuses on bourgeoisie country house of a middle-class society. This play was successfully staged in London’s West End and the author proved to be capable of writing high-quality plays according to the standards of the mid-fifties drawing a dramatic link with a construction of ‘well-made’ dialogues and naturalistic form (Elsom 96). It opened in London under the direction of John Gielgud and won the Evening Standard Drama Award.

Although this dramatic piece established Shaffer’s name in the commercial sector, British critics mostly warmly approved but at the same time labelled Shaffer a 'Tory Playwright, an Establishment Dramatist, a Normal Worker” (Kavanagh 7) which the author strictly objected and took him a long time to shake it off. Nevertheless, the play had over six hundred performances which, according to Oleg Kerensky, a contemporary ballet critic and performer (“The Independent”) “constitutes an extremely long run for a serious drama” (Kavanagh 6). When Five Finger Exercise moved to New York in 1959, it was equally well received and landed Shaffer the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Foreign Play.

The masterpiece of the Five Finger Exercises was followed with a number of short plays with varying success including The Private Ear and The Public Eye that opened in London in 1962 and in New York one year later. Shaffer was not satisfied with these standards and broke away from well-made play to tackle historical subject on an epic scale in his play The Royal Hunt of the Sun (Elsom 97).

The play is featured by a narrator, an old man who recalls his past of being a member of Spanish mercenaries undergoing the conquest of the Inca Empire in Peru. The breakthrough

11 advancement did not lie as much in the flashback-like narration that could help to bridge the awkward passages on the stage as it did in “a kind of total theatre, involving not only words but rites, mimes, masks and magics” (Elsom 97). “The text cries for illustration. It is a director’s piece, a pantomimist’s piece, a musician’s piece, a designer’s piece and, of course, an actor’s piece, also as much as it is an author’s.” (Shaffer “Preface to The Royal Hunt”) John Elsom points out that Shaffer in his play showed his ability to absorb some Brechtian and Antonin Artaud’s techniques demanded a theatre of mime, ritual and inarticulate cries (97). He also preserved the well-made play dramatic features of definite crisis, and strong conflicts between two characters that represent opposing forces of morality and ethical codes and rejected traditional naturalism. The crisis in Shaffer’s plays is represented by the conquest of one side over the other with, in an addition of ‘romantic’ attitudes that usually prevail, at least on an emotional level. “Atahuallpa might be killed, but Pizarro the cynic suffered the more prolonged and terrible fate” (Elsom 98). Madeleine Kavanagh in her publication expresses the feeling of the audience that witnessed an unexpected ‘intellectual spectacle’ distinct from any other Shaffer’s previous plays.

1.3. Peter Shaffer in the context of the Czech theatre

Peter Shaffer has not only been a prominent figure on the British and American stage but several of his plays has also been translated into Czech language and adapted for the Czech theatres. Undoubtedly, the most publicly favoured is Amadeus which might be caused by two relevant aspects that dominate.

First of all, the Milos Forman’s film adaptation premiered in 1985 significantly contributed to the success of the play on stage and second, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart himself is domesticated with the Czech cultural environment, mainly due to his personal visits to both Prague and Brno where he, as an eleven-year-old boy, performed in Reduta Theatre Brno.

Amadeus was first staged in the Czech theatres in 1982, in the translation by Martin Hilský, and was enthusiastically applauded by the audience (Divadelní ústav). It was three years after its premiere in London where it won Evening Standard Award for Best Play. Brand new adaptation of the play can be seen in Husa na Provazku Theatre in Brno.

If Amadeus has been noticed by the Czech public with excitement it seems to be of much less attraction with Shaffer’s earlier play The Royal Hunt of the Sun, which was performed in

London National Theatre over decades and represented a breakthrough in British postmodern theatre. Therefore, it appears surprising that there were at all three adaptations of the play since its premiere in The State Theatre in Brno in 1967 in the translation by Jiri Mucha.

According to the critic and editor of Literarni Noviny Vladimir Hulec who reviewed the last adaptation in Vinohradske Theatre in 1999, the play arrangement was burdened with heaviness and appeared too descriptive and fossilized (Hulec). From my point of view the failure of having the play withdrawn from the stage may lie in unwillingness to disengage from the Shaffer’s concept of ‘total theatre’ and stubborn insistence on theatrical ideas valid in the sixties of the twentieth century.

Among other Shaffer’s plays which have had appreciable position on the Czech theatre stage ranks a psychological drama Equues, which was also adapted for Mestske Divadlo Brno in 2008 in translation of Ivo T. Havlu. The comeback of this play was introduced in London West End in 2007 after over thirty years, and promised to be one of the hottest tickets of that season. The outstanding rating of the play in cultural reviews in London may have had a significant impact on its revival in the Czech theatres the following year. On the other hand, Shaffer’s crucial masterpiece Five Finger Exercise, which was the stepping stone into his professional career, has not been translated into Czech even though it would deserve more attention.

Among other plays translated into Czech language and performed on the Czech stages belong Black Comedy, successfully staged since 1968, The Public Eye, with its last adaptation in 2009 or Lettice and Lovage, a comedy first introduced in 1990. Certainly, the number of Shaffer’s adaptations for the Czech theatres is dependable on the commercial success in their mother country as well as the dramatists’ ‘skill and will’ to ‘coat’ the plays into a new form according to the principles of modern theatre of the twenty-first century.

2. Introduction to Amadeus

This part conducts research into the personal characteristics of the main protagonists Salieri and Mozart, their attitudes and thoughts within a perception of their social and cultural background. It also comprises the author’s fictional personal view on the historical events.

The Peter Shaffer’s play Amadeus is primarily an extraordinary look into the mind of the Viennese Court composer Antonio Salieri. Although, the masterpiece is titled after the Salzburg born composer Wolfgang Mozart, it is a character of Salieri who guides the reader or spectator throughout the play. It reveals the diametrical difference in both protagonists’ personalities, their lifestyle, sense for responsibility and the rivalry of two composers.

Subconsciously, the play can serve as a guideline to understand and evaluate the time of the social and philosophical changes coming up with the movement of Enlightenment that had shaken the structure of well-established sets of rules.

This is achieved by imposing the non-conform, distracted manners of Mozart’s character that, under the ponderousness of given circumstances, intrude the established etiquette. Mozart represents the undermining of this etiquette on one hand and conservative Salieri absolute rejection of such a destruction of orders on the other. What’s more, the thick walls of pomposity are being cracked by an exceptionally talented but annoyingly childish individual, which is regarded as something utterly unacceptable. To understand better the message of this Shaffer’s play, it is necessary to look closer into the protagonists’ characteristics, their mental transformations towards the end of the play and distinguish between the author’s fiction and reality.

2.1. Facts and fiction in Amadeus

As some audience have the tendency to compare the characters, invented by the author, entirely with their real models, it is advised to be clarified, that Shaffer employed Mozart and Salieri with fictional personalities. The characters are fabricated from a blend of imaginative and factual features. Shaffer took some historically known facts with lapses from other sources, for instance Mozart’s correspondence and Pushkin’s drama Mozart and Salieri, first performed in 1832 and integrated them in the play (Shaffer “Longman” xiii). Together they

14 make an essence of the drama with a determined purpose to emphasise the style of the characters’ behaviour, their mental processes and ambitions.

A number of narrative details have found their way into Amadeus composer, for instance, his envy of the careless ease with which Mozart can write music of unarguable genius, finally, his decision – while pretending to be the younger man’s friend – to engineer his destruction. (Shaffer “Longman” xiii)

In the play, the author intentionally exaggerates Mozart’s speech with rhyming, affectionately childish language in order to put it in a contrast with his geniality. His frequent quotes like “telling selling me that my uncle curbuncle” or “today the letter setter from my Papa Ha! Ha!” (Shaffer “Longman” xv) only underline the Mozart’s resistance to accept the moral concept of those days. As mentioned in the Introduction to the play Amadeus, Peter Shaffer was inspired, among other things, by Mozart's correspondence with his cousin Anna Marie Thekla, in which he occasionally employs rhymed, playful style of a language with a number of faecal vocabulary and sexual allusions (Longman xv). By applying this characteristic and unique expressional device in the play, Shaffer seasoned Mozart's behaviour and manners of speech with the pure intention to withdraw an acquired urge of idealizing geniuses as people with exquisite taste and behaviour.

Therefore, both the reader and the spectator should be aware of the fact that the fictional arrangements help to run the story in a more dramatic way and, secondly, highlight the irony of life and mental changes that both protagonists experience. Some audience, nevertheless, responded negatively to such a radical intervention to their concept of Mozart, since they did not want to accept a Mozart as a fictional dramatic character that giggles dottily towards them from the stage (Shaffer, Hilský 35).

2.2. What the author says about Amadeus

Martin Hilský, who translated Amadeus for the Czech stages comments on the character of Salieri as a person with his own emptiness, which he, due to his above-average intelligence, diagnoses accurately and that makes him a wicked mischief not hesitating to use his position and power to destroy Mozart. He further adds that the worst punishment for Salieri is the

15 realization that Mozart is immortal. The most worrisome paradox of the Shaffer’s play, however, lies in the fact that his Salieri is also immortal. He is here among us. A piece of him lives on in every human slights, in every malice, every foul trick and envy in every human incompetence, pettiness and crookedness (Shaffer 8).

Shaffer himself recalls that during his work on the character of Salieri for Amadeus the mysterious silhouette that appears in the play, in his eyes became every day more tangible. Masked, its back against the house of the eighteenth century, in a narrow street at night, an obsessed creature now ready, on the contrary, to possess and dominate. The creature born from the legend of the grey messenger, finally in Shaffer’s mind not only boded proximity of death but something even worse. It was envy that stood as a guard in front of the genius’ house: a gloomy icon and pathetic at the same time, a symbol of destructive jealousy, rivalry in the arts. (Shaffer 13)

In the Preface to Amadeus Peter Shaffer writes about how the main character of Antonio Salieri was being rewritten and completed for several times before being brought to its finish form. For instance, the figure of the Phantom lurking under the windows of Mozart’s apartment was originally written for one of Salieri's servants named Greybig (Longman xxvii). Gradually, the author merged this figure with the process of mental changes and rising madness of Salieri’s personality and logically combined the two characters into one. As a result, Salieri's obsession to destroy Mozart is even more emphasized because the death and jealousy assume their physical appearance.

Similarly, the character of Mozart was twice redone and adapted specifically for the purpose of a stage arrangement. In particular, Peter Shaffer eliminated Mozart's boorish vulgarity of speech, in comparison to the original version and highlighted the ambivalent relationship to his father. In his Introduction to the play the author also underlines that the physicality, rawness and directness of the Mozart character can be best experienced by the spectators watching the theatre performance (Longman xii): “Amadeus is, after all, to be brought to physical life in a space which has to be animated afresh each time of playing, by the vibration of the actors and by those of the spectators” (Longman xi). Intentionally, it depends on the audience and their perception of the character that gives the play a definite meaning. Each

16 person holds the right to interpret Mozart’s behaviour at one’s own will, which features the drama with certain diversity.

3. The meaning of irony in Amadeus

The play is by all means full of irony. Antonio Salieri as the designer of Mozart’s gradual mental and professional decline becomes himself mentally broken and for thirty years, after Mozart’s death, has been facing a process of self-destruction. If he blames God for breaking the treaty at the beginning of the play, he blames himself for the tragedy he has caused at the end. The rumours of the assassination spread among the Viennese make Salieri tie to Mozart’s name closer than ever before. What’s more, they ensure him immortality as Salieri expresses in his desperate call:

After today, whenever men speak Mozart’s name with love, they will speak mine with loathing! As his name grows in the world so will mine – if not in fame, then in infamy. I’m going to be immortal after all! – And He is powerless to prevent it! . . . (He laughs harshly.) So, Signore – see now if Man is mocked! (Shaffer “Amadeus” 100)

The play is intertwined with several aspects symbolizing ‘the end of good times’ and the beginning of times of change and difficulties that shall intrude the life of Antonio Salieri before long.

Such a turning point in Salieri’s formation occurs, in particular, in the scene of the March of Welcome played by Salieri accompanying Mozart to the Imperial court of the Schonbrunn Palace. Mozart is personified to ‘upgrade’ Salieri’s March, shortly after his arrival in Vienna. By this clownish roguishness Mozart openly manifests that the composition and the whole Salieri’s music production alike are of average feats. Additionally, he escalates his public act by replaying the March over and over, finally stopping at the fourth beat claiming: “It does not really work that Fourth, does it? Let’s try the Third above” . . . (Amadeus 27). Mozart obviously does it with a joy, with attributes of a grotesque using his unique, disarming comments in order to insult the ‘old cattivo’.1

For Salieri this humiliation seems to be totally devastating, rude gesture, which has far- reaching consequences for further development of their relationship. Ashamed, Salieri

17 realizes his loss. This passage is, ironically enough, used later in Mozart's Marriage of Figaro,2 specifically in the aria in which Figaro warns Cherub that “now is the time to forget the joys and benefits of the past and look forward to coming woes” (Shaffer “Longman” xix).

Shaffer in the play uses passages of music as a medium through which he decodes the figure of Antonio Salieri. More ironic elements in the characters of Mozart and Salieri occur in the processing of their way of communication. While Mozart, a composer of divine music, is conferred a language of a ‘teenage brat’, Salieri, a composer of average talent, is featured with long philosophical monologues nearly as if he was reciting poetry. The passage in which Salieri expresses his anger and betrayal that God perpetrated on him, is an explicit example.

Grazie tanti! You put into me perception of the Imcomparable – which men never know! – then ensured that I would know myself forever mediocre. (His voice gains power.) Why? . . . What is my fault? . . . (Shaffer “Longman” xxiii)

As the play proceeds, Salieri takes Mozart under his wings and serves more or less as his surrogate father: he promises his intercession at the Imperial Court to help Mozart in his misery, offers support and friendship (yet bogus one) and performs as a companion whom Mozart may entrust at any time. It is the matter of unravelling whether desperate Mozart is able to recognize the meanness in Salieri’s treatment to him, or is already so hopelessly ill that he blindly receives any message of hope he is being delivered. My interpretation is that he is aware of the abuse, but is not left any other choice. Who else, after all, shall he appeal to in such a non-prospective state, after all his fellows have turned their backs to him and assumed a reserved stance?

4. The role of dialogue in Amadeus

Throughout the play, the dialogues between Mozart and Salieri are limited practically to a mutual exchange of single-sentenced utterances. Both are extraordinary musicians of their time and, theoretically, expected to discuss their experience in composing music and share new musical forms. Nevertheless, these attributes are not present in Shaffer´s Amadeus since both composers possess totally different expressions of interpersonal communication. Only shallowly Salieri commands respect, in fact his affection is a disguise which serves for the purpose to discriminate and corrupt Mozart’s eccentric exhibitions. Neurotic, impatient and

18 eager Mozart is familiar with the settled, conventional Italian music and he neither seems to exhibit any signs of interest to Salieri´s music productions, nor has he the will of being fawning like Salieri is over the Emperor. By no means does he want to show a respect to Salieri’s work, for Mozart so boring and feeble. It results in the fact that their communication is limited to small talks with a hint of sarcasm and insults.

Mozart is being accused of using exaggerated gestures and engaging unscrupulous and sarcastic language within short after he appears on the scene. “MOZART: Majesty! Your Majesty’s humble slave! Let me kiss your royal hand a hundred thousand times! He kisses it greedily, over and over, until its owner withdraws it with embarrassment.” (Shaffer “Amadeus” 22-23) This way, however, he clearly reflects the speech of the representatives around His Majesty themselves, a language full of 'chittero - chattero' Italian terms, French expressions and mutilation of standard German. Primarily, it is the form of the noble communicative utterance that appears to Mozart as unbearable. At the same time, his self- presentation draws a caricature of the society that is obviously not ready to receive immediate signals of their own ridiculousness. He appears too direct in opinions and stiff in attitudes to be admitted by the Viennese aristocracy, too bright and unaffected to attend any pseudo- sophisticated discussions about music, as well as dangerously disarming to be within a company with anyone willing to talk to him (Shaffer “Longman” xvi). Especially Salieri sees his rival as a freak of nature, addressing him a Creature by which he deprives him of any human virtues.

Shit-talking Mozart’ he may be to the outraged Salieri, but he is also a fresh breeze blowing through the rarified atmosphere of the salons and opera houses. Though he can match the pseudo-sophisticated foreign talk of the courties, he is more obviously at home with the nursery games and the homely Austrianism he shares with his ‘botty-smacking wife’. He is a straight talker: forthright in his attitudes, downright in his opinions, careless over aggravating others, oblivious of the offence he causes – unlike Salieri or Strack or van Swieten with their discreet reserve. (Shaffer “Longman” xvi)

Aware of his uniqueness, Mozart offers himself as a selling article, not bound to anyone, even to God himself as Salieri is. He is just the son of one Kapellmeister3 from a small town of

Salzburg yet the creator of divine music, the Magic Flute as Salieri states in his analogy of Mozart’s music.

Mozart’s clash with so-called enlightened society of his day raises some important issues. He cannot, after all, help being either who or what he is: unvarnished son of a small-town Kapellmeister – yes – but also (to use Salieri’s words) ‘a voice of God’, the Magic Flute through whom is breathed a music so sublime that it cannot fail to survive in a world where most else must inevitably pass away. He cannot be the one without being the other – but that does not stop society demanding that he should. (Shaffer “Longman” xvii)

It ought to be, however, considered that Mozart's manners of public presentation, physical appearance and even his music comprise secondary elements in the drama. The prime, covert purpose is to shape the character of Salieri, moving from reserved refinement, over the first shock of meeting with Mozart's compositions to the humiliation and degradation of his own musical patterns. His post as Court Composer and whole life work suddenly suffer a loss on their importance and towards the end his existence obtains a rough expression of a crushed, poor fellow, a portrayal of a pitiful old man on the verge of death. Mozart’s attributes are, on the other hand, like a light that illuminates the shadowy stereotypes and Salieri’s hypocrisy.

5. The characters of Salieri and Mozart

It is the character of Antonio Salieri that guides the play and is the mast of the dramatic climax. He steers the wheel of his and Mozart’s destiny and sets familiar environment thanks to the technique of flashback through which Shaffer allows Salieri to share his inner processes with the audience or reader in the form of a number of monologues (Shaffer “Longman” xxiv).

Since the very beginning of the play Salieri reveals the heaviness of his thoughts, providing the audience with the opportunity to browse through his conscience and understand the way he behaves. He is very agile in negotiating with the Viennese aristocracy, in his soliloquy, however, reveals his desires and reproach that makes him more intelligible. In his rococo style outfit he presents a serious, respectful and rather pompous court composer, but the misery and burden he drags behind has been growing in dimensions as the play is progressing.

This is now the very last hour of my life. You must understand me. Not forgive. I do not seek forgiveness. I was a good man, as the world calls good. What use was it to me? Goodness could not make me a good composer. Goodness could not make me a good composer. Was Mozart good? . . . Goodness is nothing in the furnace of art. (Shaffer “Amadeus” 52)

Salieri appears to take on a role of a theatrical performer, an illusionist manipulating with others and giving an impression of reality. He is, in fact, a covert figure disguised in a mask of pretence, desperately fighting for the values he deserves. Mozart, on the other hand, presents himself naturally, effortlessly. It is somewhat like a concept of a theatre in the theatre under Salieri’s conducting. Despite the freakiness of a man dressed into an attire of a schemer, Salieri remains very human and natural, and ought to be treated with a respect of a man who experiences betrayal and behaves accordingly. Mentally despondent, he becomes an agent interrogating his venticellos, a gossip collector, but primarily, a victim of his jealousy.

From the beginning of the play Salieri acts as a God’s servant. Since he has made an agreement with God and is bound to Him as his debtor, he promises to fulfil the God’s will by composing the best music ever. For the exchange he requires a post of the most respected composer. Salieri has to face a challenge in the personality of young Mozart, which he is incapable to deal with. As a representative of conformity and conservatism, he is far from the acceptance of any innovative thoughts and relies purely on God’s will to impose geniality on him. Since no response comes, he feels betrayed and jealous. The voice of God, the ‘Magic Flute’ is not his own but is produced by the childish, disrespectful Mozart. Confused, Salieri does not understand the point that such a foolish, crazy, unwitty boy has been gifted a talent of God, whereas him, highly-regarded, reputable composer is supposed to become reconciled to the average. As a resolution of his mental processes he begins to trace Mozart the pace to death by a moral assassin. Salieri is sly but he is also a cultivated representative of a high class society, and by this respect he is managing his revenge as by no means can he get his reputation destroyed. Nevertheless, the prime purpose of Salieri’s revenge is not to remove Mozart as such as it is the retribution to God through Mozart’s existence (Shaffer “Longman” xvii).

On that dreadful Night of the Manuscripts my life acquired a terrible and thrilling purpose. The blocking of Go in one of his purest manifestations. I had the power. God needed Mozart to let himself into the world. And Mozart needed me to get worldly advancement. So it would be a battle to the end – and Mozart was the battleground. (Shaffer “Amadeus” 52)

The appearance of the phantom raises a schizophrenic-like split of Salieri’s personality and further develops the dramatic turn in the play. The first Salieri's half is unctuous, slimy, imposing a favour to Mozart, it is pretence of being a close friend and helpful companion to turn to in times of troubles, and on whom the increasingly desperate Mozart can rely and find a support in. The mastery of Shaffer's dramatization is fully realized in revealing Salieri´s second role in the form of the mysterious phantom. It may well be regarded as Salieri´s metamorphosis from a human being into a cold, abstract, bloodless illusion, a dark side of Mozart´s soul, his silent reproach. This portrayal of abstractness fits the character of Salieri with a new dimension. His jealousy steps out of a Salieri composer and takes a form of a disguised figure. Envy lurking beneath the windows of Mozart´s apartment, snooping around the dark streets of classicist Vienna. Salieri's envy is inventive, creative, constantly emerging new ways of self-realization, yet it is obviously much more pitiful than all Mozart's miserable life. Therefore, it is the matter of consideration how would Mozart behave being in Salieri’s position (Shaffer “Longman” xvi).

Mozart ought to be viewed as the character of a supplementary importance in the play. He is the victim of Salieri’s cruel ambitions, and is in a complete contrary to Salieri by all respects. A childish nonconformist possessing a very crazy, insane-like manners, absent-minded by nature, yet gifted an extra aspect which Salieri is shortened of. Having Mozart coated deliberately in the crust of madness, Shaffer sets a dramatic contrast in order to oppose the serious pompousness which characterizes his rival. Mozart by his attitude breaks the well- established orders of the Enlightenment era and the etiquette constrained to face the arrogance of Viennese citizens, as expressed in the Introduction to the play:

Mozart’s clash with the so-called enlightened society of his day raises some important issues. He cannot, after all, help being

either who or what he is: unvarnished son of a small- town Kapellmeister – yes – but also (to use Salieri’s words) ‘a voice of God’, the Magic Flute through whom is breathed a music so sublime that it cannot fail to survive in a world where most else must inevitably pass away. He cannot be the one without being the other – but that does not stop society demanding that he should. (Shaffer “Longman” xvii)

Being more or less under Salieri’s supervision, Mozart’s pace through the play is fully dependent on Salieri’s own manoeuvres. Since they are introduced to each other, Mozart has been embodied in a role of a puppet with a very limited space of self-employment which is supported by his ruffled wig and foolish discourse he possesses. He sets a mirror to the members of aristocracy which irritates them, thus Mozart is sentenced to remain a misunderstood outsider. Despite the tragic disharmony in both protagonists’ characters they still bear some kind of similarity - it is their need to speak through music. Neither handles the ability to balance their consciousness other way but exposing their music. Salieri exploits Mozart’s talent in the planned assassination, which approaches slowly and sneakily.

The scene in which Salieri is relaxing in an upholstered armchair, sophisticatedly relishing delicious confections of sorbetti-caramelli and crema al mascarpone in the Baroness Waldstadten’s library depicts the discreetness of Salieri’s and the playfulness of Mozart’s characters. This theatrical spectacle serves a load of comical performances within a moment the two gentlemen appear in the room. Salieri, a loyal attendant to the Austrian Emperor in contrast to Mozart who presents himself as a cat - a hunting animal romping around the room. He is frisky and playful and indulges his spontaneity. Such a stark contrast in the presentations of both composers emphasizes the ratio of total inconsistencies and character contradictions.

MOZART. I’m going to pounce-bounce! I’m going to scrunch-munch! I’m going to chewpoo my little mouse-wouse! I’m going to tear her to bits with my paws-claws!

CONSTANZE. No!

MOZART. Paws-claws, paws-claws, paws-claws! OHH! . . .

He falls on her. She screams.

SALIERI. (to Audience) Before I could rise, it had become difficult to do so. (Shaffer “Amadeus” 16-17)

Mozart is portrayed in a perspective of a mentally immature individual, but the more he reveals his style of self-presentation, the deeper feelings of delusion and manipulation he gives. If I state earlier in my thesis that Salieri manipulates with people, the same could be claimed about Mozart. He deliberately provokes by his outfit appearance, especially his ruffled-wig style and exaggeratedly fitted clothing in which he representatively appears on formal occasions. His cues and comments are straightforwardly accurate, free from any flowery curls, and without an exception they hit the point. He is fully conscious of where and how to hurt Salieri’s peacockery and has an ingenious skill to humiliate his rival in public. Mozart proves his brightness and readiness which he manages effectively against Salieri. He is far too agile and alert rather than infantile as he appears to be.

The manipulative tendency represents a significant theme directing the destiny of both characters. In Amadeus the motif is rather explicitly expressed by the relationship between Mozart and Constanze Weber. His ‘hanky-panky’ flirting with his expectant wife is like running blood into his veins and her sexual appetite is the dominant factor in their mutual attachment. At the same time it is also the only escape from the misery they go through. In contrast, Salieri has voluntarily renounced all sexual intrigue or even hints of physical attraction of his music students in exchange for a covenant with God. He abides by the celibacy, yet only until he finds to have been betrayed, and it is Constanze who becomes his first victim of extortion and manipulation. The hunger for revenge fights in him with decrease of dignity. Finally, being offered her body, Salieri refuses, disgusted begins to realize his moral destruction, an act of humiliation.

Commonly, in both plays the sexual conflicts are expressed by a rape in the territories: in Vienna it is Mozart abused by the aristocratic institutionalism and opportunism, in The Royal Hunt of the Sun it is the rape of one country by another.

6. The role of dual male characters

One of the distinctive features involved in Shaffer’s plays is a pair of male characters somehow dependent on one another. In Amadeus, these are represented by the two rivals of Mozart and Salieri whose fates are mutually intertwined and bound to each other. Similar principle functions in the relationship between the conqueror Pizarro and the Inca chief Atahuallpa in The Royal Hunt of The Sun. This act of mutual interconnection introduces to the phenomenon of realizing one’s own life destiny through the character of the other. Salieri sees his mediocrity only through the glasses which Mozart lends him on. This has a harmful effect on Salieri, which drives him to the brink of madness and a denial of his own beliefs. Purposely, Salieri is willing to identify with Mozart’s inner processes in order to poison him mentally. As a result, he only realizes his vain plea to God for gifting geniality. “Had I in fact been simply taken by surprise that the filthy creature could write music at all? . . . Suddenly I felt immensely cheered! I would seek him out and welcome him myself to Vienna!” (Shaffer “Amadeus” 21). Pizarro experiences awakening under the King’s influence and feels enlightened by the Sun he was questing. Their different natural spirits and mutual rivalry, however, lead them to death.

The relationships identified in Shaffer’s plays are thus established on rivalry between two counterparts coming from different cultural or social backgrounds, which are explicitly revealed. Despite the fact, that these rivals possess different mentality and perception of life, they are in a certain mutual physical interdependence. For instance, the first time Salieri hears Mozart´s music, he becomes eager and later obsessed with the young Austrian to the extent of being present at every of Mozart´s performances, overwhelmed by the heavenly tones penetrating his ears. He realizes that the ladder of his life priorities has crumbled even though he still bears his post of adored Court Composer. Never more does he feel any satisfaction

The theory of two rival personalities has been elaborately analysed by a French-born, American literary critic and philosopher of social science René Girard in his fundamental concept ‘mimetic desire’ (“René Girard” IEP). And his theory has been applied on Shaffer’s establishing of pair-character model (Block 57). Girard’s theory is based on the mechanism of imitation other people’s desire, which may lead to conflicts and rivalry. The author further explains that imitating someone else’s desire may end up in desiring for the same thing and consequently, such individuals become rivals as they reach for identical objects. Therefore, by ‘mimesis’ or ‘mimetic’, Girard implies negative imitative aspects of rivalry (“René Girard”

IEP). His concept of an instinctive response (mimetic desire) is an applicable parallel to both Salieri and Mozart in Amadeus and Pizarro and Atahuallpa in The Royal Hunt of the Sun. In the latter, the analysis of young Martin supply evidence that he tries to behave in the manner of his idol Pizarro who desires to capture the Sun-God Atahuallpa. The King of Incas, whom Pizarro envies, acts contradictory - as his rival but also as his son. Pizarro earlier in the play before he meets the Inca chief confides his unfulfilled desire of having a son to De Soto:

PIZARRO: “Time cheats us all the way. Children, yes – having children goes some steps of defeating it. Nothing else. It would have been good to have a son.” (Shaffer “The Royal Hunt” 31) Atahuallpa, aged thirty three, seems to be the compensation. Simultaneously, Pizarro, although a rebel, envies young Martin’s chivalric virtues and his sense of binding to ‘sacred objects’ like the soldier’s sward (Block 63). Pizarro feels isolated and desire-free admitting that “if I could ﬁnd the place where it [the sun] sinks to rest for the night, I’d ﬁnd the source of life, like the beginning of a river.” (Shaffer “The Royal Hunt” 32)

The ‘mimetic desire’ is explicit when he eventually captures Atahuallpa, including his dignity and natural grace – virtues that are the subjects of imitation and desire. The Inca chief represents the goal Pizarro has promised himself to achieve. As the play proceeds to its climax, Pizarro, aged over sixty, sees in Atahuallpa a hope to transcend time, a force that he cannot master and that becomes the source of envy (Block 64).

Pizarro. You will die soon and you do not believe in your God. That is way you tremble and keep no word. Believe in me. I will give you a word and fill you with joy. For you I will do a great thing. I will swallow death and spit it out of me. (Shaffer 76)

In Amadeus, the self-destructive effects are even more explicit from the early pages of the play, owing to the flashback narrative structure, similarly employed in The Royal Hunt of the Sun. Girard’s ‘mimetic desire’ is framed in Salieri’s confession of envy to young Mozart, which becomes timeless and limitless obsession supplying the effects of deadly rivalry. Listening to the Adagio from the Serenade for Thirteen Wind Instruments, Salieri begins to experience pain (Block 66):

. . . What is this pain? What is this need in the sound? Forever unfulﬁllable yet fulﬁlling him who hears it, utterly. Is it Your need?

Can it be Yours? . . . I was suddenly frightened. It seemed to me I had heard a voice of God—and that it issued from a creature whose own voice I had also heard—and it was the voice of an obscene child! (Shaffer “Amadeus” 19-20)

The role of rivalry and desire takes on absolute terms, which is apparent later on when the play unfolds. Even at Mozart’s death, Salieri still does not stop chasing his rival and experiences feelings that blend both desire and fear (Block 67):

God does not love you, Amadeus. God does not love! He can only use! . . . He cares nothing for who He uses: nothing for who He denies! . . . You are no use to Him any more. You’re too weak, too sick! He has ﬁnished with you! All you can do now is die! He’ll ﬁnd another instrument! He won’t even remember you! . . . Die, Amadeus! Die, I beg you, die! . . . Leave me alone, ti imploro! Leave me alone at last! Leave me alone! (Shaffer “Amadeus” 93)

The depth of Salieri’s desire, sense of inadequacy and guilt, however, is not fully realized until the moments after Mozart’s death. His soliloquy when he recalls the past years of punishment, in terms of unsatisfied desire, reminds of Pizarro’s quest for a lasting fame. Salieri triggers the rumour that he was responsible for Mozart’s death “I did it deliberately!” . . . (Shaffer “Amadeus” 100) because “Mozart’s music would sound everywhere—and mine in no place on the earth.” (Shaffer “Amadeus” 99) According to the scheme of Girard’s theory, Salieri’s call for a scandal reveals the nature of his envy. As a result he is becoming self- destructive because he cannot measure neither to Mozart nor God (Block 67).

. . . And slowly I understood the nature of God’s punishment. (Directly, to the audience) What had I asked for in that Church as a boy? Was it not Fame? Well, now I had it! I was to become quite simply the most famous musician in Europe! . . . I was to be bricked up in Fame! Buried in Fame! . . . Embalmed in Fame - but for work I knew to be absolutely worthless! . . . (Shaffer “Amadeus” 98)

Regarding the prospect of rivalry, Salieri makes an enormous effort to be better than his opponent realizing, that only the ruin of Mozart can satisfy his needs. SALIERI: “And now –

Gracious Ladies! Obliging Gentlemen! I present to you – for one performance only – my last composition, entitled The Death of Mozart, or Did I do it? . . . dedicated to Posterity on this – the last night of my life!” (Shaffer “Amadeus” 9)

It is said that in case our neighbour comes into possession of some property, people usually choose from two options. Either they make any effort to prevent the neighbour from presenting it in public as a result of envy, or they supply themselves with more expensive or more powerful property of the same kind. Initially, Salieri choses the second option according to which he decides to compose “an opera that will amaze the world” (Shaffer ‘Amadeus” 28). He finds out, however, that it is of no effect at all, since whenever exposed to Mozart’s arias, he is humbly confirmed of his mediocrity. Consequently, Salieri ends up in choosing the former option that becomes fatal to him. On the contrary, Mozart feels self-confident about his musical compositions and stands obstinately in his defence. He does not tolerate the slightest criticism of his work, and should such one ever come he rejects with uncompromising retort. ROSENBERG. “Write it over” . . . MOZART. “Not when the music is perfect! Not when it’s absolutely perfect as it is!”. . . (Shaffer “Amadeus” 64) From his audience he expects to be praised since only such a feedback is admissible.

7. The social issue and religion

Shaffer’s work involves a scheme of an individual who should submit to opinions and sentiments of the majority. This aspect of forcible adaptability can be also seen in other Shaffer´s plays like Five Finger Exercise represented by the character of Walter Langer, a young German tutor to the Harringtons´ daughter Pamela, or in Shriving, in which the bohemian spirit of Mark Askelton soon breaks into a savage confrontation with the other members of the Cotswold home of Sir Gideon, especially with his own son. The common desire of Mozart, followed by Salieri as well as Pizarro is to make every effort to attain ‘higher values’ through rivalry. Therefore they are doomed to failure, misunderstood or unwilling to understand. Progressively, they deal with the destiny of becoming solitary outsiders and loners.

Initially, Shaffer introduces Mozart as a confident young man, an adolescent who dares to conquer the Imperial Court of Vienna (the same way that Pizarro is trying to reach for the Sun) in order to gain recognition. Mozart possesses a role of an eccentric stirring public´s

28 attention by every single word he says and deed he does. He presents a youth who revolts against the rigidness of the society and its musical taste, represented by Antonio Salieri. Aware of his musical gifts and Salieri’s limitedness, he craves for new aesthetic and musical forms which would appeal to the Viennese aristocracy for its established conservatism. Shaffer progressively uncovers Mozart’s mental degradation by setting him in a contrast with his own self: To the end of the play Mozart is a man defeated, deceived, misunderstood and expelled. A poor boy who pleads the Viennese elite for living, gradually dependent on Salieri´s 'benefits’ in the form of interceding with His Majesty Josef II for Mozart´s economic survival. Fully ‘tamed’ and rejected, Mozart is deprived of the rival’s competitiveness yet until the last moment of his life determined to get recognized. Salieri is sponging on Mozart´s collapse, like any society feeds on somebody else´s failure. Peter Shaffer in Amadeus sets the handle of a scale, a life balance based on the theory that making one successful means that somebody else must go bankrupt.

The play Amadeus is certainly not built on the single idea of a well-spirited evil genius of Mozart versus average-gifted Salieri. In no respect are Peter Shaffer´s characters so superficially appealing. Salieri, for instance, deserves to be accompanied with a certain feeling of a pity and forgiveness. As the play progresses, a tendency to accept his retaliation for his rival’s impudence emerges and his sufferings are justified. Salieri’s responses are on the whole natural as they would be to any ambitious human being, and his behaviour is one of the aspects that make the play timeless. For this reason Salieri’s character is dramatically more interesting than Mozart’s.

In the scene in which he confides his motives and feelings of betrayal over the past years, he appeals to be shown a piece of respect. After all, why should he, a respected, sophisticated and distinguished composer in the imperial court, suffer from feelings of imperfection and humiliation? For the sake of one ‘childish brat’ from Salzburg? Peter Shaffer further explains:

Of course Salieri commits a stupid sin – and I do not mean his persecution of Mozart. He demands a God he can understand. What artist would do that? He says, in effect, ‘Let me dip my net into the unfathomable well, and bring up shining creatures hitherto unseen!’ But he also says, ‘Let me see the bottom of this well: it is my right as a man! I object to the darkness wherein the connections of beauty are formed.’ As well object to the dark of the womb! Confronted by divine mystery, he says merely, ‘How dare you?’ A

fool, you say. And yet he also has his right. All he wanted was to serve. To be owned by the Absolute. We need an answer for his torment. True he is condemned to chew forever the cud of his own poisonous sense of fairness – but yet who would dare say a sense of fairness is dispensable? (Longman ix)

Poor social or emotional background (Pizarro had been a pig herdsman for twenty-four years) or weak relationships with their closest family relatives (Mozart and the conflict with his father on the issue of his marriage with Constanze Weber and consequent refusal of Leopold Mozart to bless such a non-perspective relationship) are reflected in the way of dealing with the subsequent challenge. Peter Shaffer introduces a psychological analysis of his characters, their uncertainty and postponement in making decisions. Pizarro, for instance, faces a dilemma when he must choose between Atahuallpa’s sacrifice and his promise to make the Inca chief a free man. ATAHUALLPA: (Violently.) You gave a word! PIZARRO: And I will keep it. Only not now. Not today. ATAHUALLPA: When? PIZARRO: Soon (Shaffer “The Royal Hunt” 62).

The hero is, afterwards, forced to take full responsibility for the situation, but due to the heavy pressure of the circumstance he must face, he turns to be indecisive and false. Mozart gives an impression of a failure that at a crucial moment of making a life decision sides with the party that serves little benefits: his marriage to Constanze Weber opposes his father’s ideas, he loses his prime supporter Baron von Swietten. His mincing behaviour makes things worse and Mozart tardily approaches the misery that eventually afflicts him at the end of his young life. The very presentation of himself to the Court of Emperor Joseph II is filled with a sense of otherness, unconventionality and violation of the rules that results in his condemnation by the majority and hostility leading to his total loneliness. Similarly, Pizarro finds himself indecisive whether to link his fate with the chief of Incas and that way to face the phenomena of converting to a new God, or remain loyal to his party, meaning to voluntarily and forever deprive himself of the opportunity to experience the new challenge.

ATAHUALLPA. First you must take my priest power

PIZARRO. (Quietly.) Oh, no! you go or not as you choose, but I take nothing more in this world. . .

. . . A long silence. The lights are now fading round them.

PIZARRO. What must I do? (Shaffer “The Royal Hunt” 77)

7.1. The characters in the context of a modern society

The timelessness of Shaffer´s Amadeus and The Royal Hunt arises when the contexts of the plays are confronted with nowadays' processes of thoughts, not so different from those of Antonio Salieri´s or Pizarro’s times. The plays are also about individual thinking facing collective obedience and loyalty. They demonstrate the power of a crowd, in Amadeus represented by the Viennese aristocracy, which manipulates with those standing aside like Mozart.

From the principle of social power it could be assumed that as in any historical era, similarly in the twenty-first century a crowd follows regulations and norms imposed by the majority of population representing mediocrity. It results in a principle that such mediocrity is the driving force in the society. Salieri in Amadeus represents explicitly this commercial majority, pretentious yet undemanding taste of upper and middle social classes, portrayed by the Imperial court and the bourgeoisie, pampering their loyal supporters - average and non- innovative manufacturers of art. In the event that this comfort is disturbed from the outside, an effect of a certain shock occurs and the stiffness vibrates. Mozart is gifted higher artistic dispositions and his intrusion is perceived as hostile. He is subsequently labelled as an outlander, incompetent bungler of music and contemporary tastes. SALIERI: “Music which makes one aware too much of the virtuosity of the composer”. (Shaffer 31) Mozart is denied and his music is eventually awarded and recognized posthumously by the generation arising of new musical circles.

The role of a particular individual character is supposed to be perceived as a reflection of the whole society in the given context and setting. Salieri himself personifies a society featured with envy and gossiping, a society which compromises, is selfish, enhances those holding a position of representatives of distinguished etiquette and discredits any individuals breaking such decorum. Vienna of those days represents a strongly conservative mechanism in which such a man like Mozart in Amadeus is not accepted and is supposed to be expelled from the intimacy of these social circles. The conservatism is expressed by the Emperor of Austria who seems shaken after having been performed The Abduction from the Seraglio4 conducted by Mozart. His upcoming comments release the hint of certain aloofness: ''There you are. It’s clever. It’s German. It’s a quality work. And there are simply too many notes. Do you see?'' (Shaffer 30) By these words, Josef II accurately reflects the limits that are well-established and viable for the ponderous audience of the Imperial Court. Shaffer introduces a society

31 formed by conventions and which assumes a role of a judge determining what matters are appropriate and acceptable. It acts as a prosecutor who wants Mozart to plead guilty. A society which ranks, constraints, judges. At the same time it behaves greedily and cowardly.

The Vienna of Amadeus is a far from satisfactory place. Capital of a sprawling empire, temple of culture, centre of musical world, it is at the same time riddled with hypocrisy and self-interest. It is ruled by an emperor whose tastes in music, tough boyishly enthusiastic, are decidedly superficial, whose court and kapelle (with the single and ironic exception of Salieri himself) are entirely incapable of recognizing true genius – a shortcoming shared by the citizens of Vienna at large. (Shaffer “Longman” xvi)

Neoclassical Vienna represents a giant organism, which is being fed by a spectrum of various musicians, composers, artists and social elite. It is a panopticum with an open exhibition of music, German and Italian opera, theatre and organized entertainment. It is also a bureaucratic apparatus inciting its citizens to gossip and spy, “capital of a sprawling empire, temple of culture, centre of the musical world, it is at the same time riddled with hypocrisy and self- interest.” (Shaffer “Longman” xv) Like a parasite which drains energy from its breadwinners, Mozart becomes the victim of the process of social assault in Vienna. The ever insatiable monster does not manage to master its instinct and literally sucks from Mozart the last remnants of his blood. The same frolic that Mozart exposes with Constanze in the library of Baroness Waldstadten (with a hidden presence of horrified Salieri) is being imposed on Mozart by the Viennese. He is trapped by the society, which acts as a cat getting its mouse exhausted to death, and in a certain point he loses too energy to cope with life.

In The Royal Hunt of the Sun the scheme of manipulative power is also employed in the characters’ mentality. Pizarro, who possesses chivalric spirit and charm is swirled into the coming event as a symbol of strength, courage and determination, but he is also handled and manipulated by representatives of the 'higher' spiritual society represented by the missionaries. He is supposed to give up his personal will for the sake of his companions.

ESTETE. Perverse man, what is Atahuallpa to you?

PIZARRO: Someone I promised Life.

ESTETE: Promised Life? You quaint. The sort of chivalry idea you pretend to despise. If you want to be an absolute king, my man, you must learn to act out of personal will. Break your word just because you gave it. Till then, you’re only a pig-man trying to cope his betters. (Shaffer “The Royal Hunt” 71)

Pizarro stands in a social clash. On one hand, he retains his Spanish virtues, on the other hand, he absorbs the principles of the ‘savage’ being gradually involved in a sort of a philosophical confrontation with the new divinity. Face to face the new spirituality he re-evaluates his life, standing between the shine of the gold at the dusk of his life and the shine of the Sun embodied in Atahuallpa. He appears overwhelmed by the philosophy of the Inca chief and his mental inferiority makes him show respect and appreciation to his newly gained relationship to Atahuallpa, who generously offers Pizarro a solution in his spiritual emptiness. “Take my word. Take my peace. I will put water to your wound, old man. Believe.” (Shaffer “The Royal Hunt” 77)

Shaffer implies the clash between worship and a kind of codification explicitly when . . . “Francisco Pizarro casts off his Carlos the Fifth. Go and tell him.” (Shaffer, “The Royal Hunt” 70) Pizarro is impressed by the Inca’s free will and a sense of freedom without any external intervention and thus breaks away from his companions. He is overwhelmed by the spirituality of the place and the same time he realizes his mediocrity and mental emptiness.

Human aspects are of superior relevance towards the end of the play. Pizarro seems manipulated and confused. Through the massacre of the Indians he simultaneously kills his own faith, becomes mentally naked and bestial, spiritually empty. Obviously, the superficiality and materialistic values of one society are presented here, alongside with its greed and opportunism, a vision of its own enrichment and destruction of anything that defies convention, therefore it is regarded as unacceptable, incompatible object of reformation or disgrace.

7.2. High and low-context society

Pizarro represents an individualistic perspective of life, which is common to most of the nations of Western Europe that once set out in the purpose of exploring the new continent of America. There, they were gradually settling down and began establishing a new cultural

33 movement of white Spanish settlers, for whom a sense of highly civilized background and superiority over other cultures was the hallmark.

Bird cries fill the forest.

PIZARRO: Listen to them. There’s the world. The eagle rips the condor; the condor rips the crow. And the crow would blind all the eagles in the sky if once it had the beak to do it. The clothed hunt the naked; the legitimates hunt the bastards, and put down the word Gentleman to blot up the blood . . . (Shaffer “The Royal Hunt” 17)

Pizarro therefore depicts the fundamental principles of Western civilization characterized by reaching for its own success and commitment to Christian values at the cost of destroying the established virtues and philosophies that had been ingrained there long before the import of Western European style of living. He is a solitary man who works firmly to fulfil his duty drifted by conviction of his leadership abilities as a conqueror. He is stubborn and determined to undergo the enterprise in order to become recognized and gain the benefits which would also give him a sense of satisfaction. He recruits his companions as servants because only through them he could touch the height of glory and fulfil his long-time lasting dreams.

From my point of view, Peter Shaffer seems to present the character of Pizarro as a newly recognised class society of future generations of Americans who will soon impose new social rules on the natives, and gradually displace the native culture to the edge of general interest. It is a European society of new colonizers, fast expanding and intrusive movement in the lands of southern and northern American continent.

Pizarro, when surrounded by the Incas, finds himself under enormous pressure, dealing with a threat of possible defeat. He takes into a resolute action in order to preserve his freedom by gaining control over the Incas. His manners comprise a strong sense of individualism featured by taking the risk, whether it leads to success or failure. At the same time he sees failure as a lack of will and effort and denies defeat that brings long suffering and unhappiness, which is not natural for further human existence. He measures the proportions of achievement within an individual, the limit of success is not ascribed to the agency of government or to fate (Stewart, Bennett). If such a society finds itself in danger or under pressure of adverse external circumstances, it ought to put all the strength and energy into the effort of getting out

34 of such a situation. By this crucial intervention Pizarro accomplishes a turning point in the development of further events. Within the single intrusion he manages to exterminate one of the old traditions of indigenous cultures. From the episode of the massacre can be learnt the author’s dramatic perception of establishing new orders of white western culture for the price of exterminating long-established traditions and norms. I integrate the topic of one culture superiority from the perspective of postcolonial theory later in my thesis.

For the dramatic purposes the climax of the massacre scene serves as a stimulus for development and mental change of Pizarro’s personality. From a social point of view his character might represent low-context culture (DeVito) which has difficulty finding an appropriate communicative channel with the members of other cultures. Since the Spaniards lack shared knowledge with the Incas, Pizarro places emphasis on explicit explanations and less on personal relationships. He also does not assume the local landmarks of the territory, which he feels difficult to familiarize with.

Atahuallpa, on the other hand, represents a culture of collectivism. The first position in the scale of values belongs to welfare, consistency and firm community of his tribe. The destiny of the Inca nation is guided by higher power, and every event that occurs is the will of God. In his behaviour a sense for plurality can be recognized. Pizarro is mistakenly seen as a deputy to God in Atahuallpa’s eyes, because only a man with divine spirits coming in peace is considered to be an equal partner to negotiate with. As a representative of high-context culture he lays stress on personal relationship and oral agreement (DeVito).

ATAHUALLPA. He lied to me. He is not a God. I came for blessing. He sharpened his knives on the shoulders of my servants. I have no word for him whose word is evil. (Shaffer, “The Royal Hunt” 49)

Shaffer’s Pizarro and consequently Mozart too prefer individuals to inclination to the group. It is not Pizarro, but his companions who mark the natives as barbarians, pagans or savages. The captured Atahuallpa still sustains his post to be titled as the Lord or the King, however subordinate he becomes under the heaviness of the circumstancies he faces. In his book Orientalism Edward Said claims that many thinkers of colonialism realized humanity in large collective terms or very abstractly rather than discussing individuals. As a result there are artificial entities rooted in populism divided into Arabs, Hindus or Jews. (154)

Shaffer sets the social context between the institutionalized power represented by Pizarro and the true freedom of the Inca chief. It aids in establishing a social communication between the conquerors and the high-context culture characterized by a strong emotional attachment to the society, dedication to faith, spiritual maturity and patience in decision making. (DeVito) Shaffer avoids direct confrontation in communicating between the two leaders and rather turns to more ritual, spiritual language that would fit with the theory of ‘total theatre’ on the stage.

Atahuallpa relies on nonverbal cues and his language is featured with gestures and mimic expressions that promote the rituality in the dialogues. Because of the prior knowledge of his people and the land, the shared information does not have to be explicitly stated (DeVito) . . . “When he moves or speaks, it is always with the consciousness of his divine origin, his sacred function and his absolute power. “ (Shaffer, “The Royal Hunt” 41-42) By these gestures the Inca also manifests his free will of worshiping the Sun and the contempt for the will of the group and normative standards.

When the difference in the communication is not understood, misunderstandings between these two cultures can occur. The directness of the low-context culture may appear insulting or insensitive in the eyes of high-context culture and vice versa. The collective communicative characteristic might prove vague or dishonest in its reluctance when engaged in communication in which low-context society would act openly and directly (DeVito).

7.3. The setting into unfamiliar environment

One of the dramatic features that characterize several Shaffer’s plays is setting the main protagonists into unfamiliar and new environments: Mozart arrives in Vienna, Pizarro conquers Peru, Alan Strang in Equus undergoes a therapy at psychiatric clinic, Walter Langer in Five Finger Exercise stays with his hosting family in Suffolk. This parallel, in Amadeus and The Royal Hunt of the Sun particularly, has the psychological effect on both Francisco Pizarro and Mozart. As they are newcomers, they need to identify with the social and moral conditions and explore their territories.

Both protagonists are hunters for success and public recognition. Pizarro comes to Peru primarily to commit robbery and make a fortune, his enrichment is eventually not as material as it is moral. Beyond the glitter of the gold retained by the Inca tribe for centuries, he finally

36 finds his self-awareness and higher moral principles. Towards the end of the play Pizarro experiences his gradual moral purification by means of accepting the fact that in such a distant land there can be other religions apart from Christianity and that Atahuallpa can serve as a representative of the deity in his country.

But Christ’s to be the only one, is that it? What if it’s possible, here in a land beyond all maps and scholars, guarded by mountains up to the sky, that there were true Gods on earth, creators of true peace? (Shaffer, “The Royal Hunt” 75)

Pizarro himself abandons Christian faith in exchange for the newly gained spirituality that promises to fill him with joy. This appears as a contradictory act regarding the background he comes from. He receives and accepts multilateral interpretation of representatives of Gods in the world and a function of a different social system. He subsequently feels confused, mentally fragile, but, perhaps for the first time in his life, genuine. The audience are involved to witness a formation of Pizarro´s character, a transformation from a greedy hunter for his prey into the prey itself. Just as Mozart is finally caught up in the networks of Vienna conventions, so Pizarro surrenders to the local divine values. Both of them practically failed in their primary purpose.

Edward Said emphasises mutual influence according to which it should be assumed that not only the colonizers influenced the natives but they were also themselves influenced by the culture of the colonized. In other words, the environment significantly contributes to the shape of one’s personality (Culture 133).

The Spaniards intend to deprive the Indians of their cultural heritage in order to gain sovereignty over the land. Said in his book implies an obsession of bringing the treasures of the colonized lands to Europe and get them displayed in the public eyes in museums. He talks about imperialistic act of geographical violence in terms of exploration of the lands, their excavation and bringing under control at the expense of losing territories of the natives to the new-comers. The geographical identity was somehow disturbed during the presence of the colonizing outsiders. He underlines the movement of general observation of the localities to specific transformations of the lands (Culture 195).

As for Shaffer, this seems to be a relevant subject since he donates an essential part of Act I - The Hunt to geographical exploration before the conquerors are confronted with the Incas. To

37 emphasize the importance of the geographical change, he allows Pizarro to settle (comfort) his consciousness by recalling his hopeless days back home in Spain and in Italy when he served army. Pizarro, disappointed by the deal in his homeland, tries to bring his images of successful career abroad.

Said, in continuity of this aspect, refers to Crosby’s Ecological Imperialism in which the author claims that Europeans began to change the local habitat wherever they moved. The reason was to transform the territories into images they had brought with them from their homeland. The change of agriculture, crops and ecological system caused environmental imbalance and dislocation for the natives. The introduction of a new political system was only logical consequence. Furthermore, a project of long-standing territorial possession was supposed to make the land profitable and in the same time integrated with external rules. Said further refers to Neil Smith’s book Uneven Development in which the results of such an integration are described , namely an unequally developed landscapes sharing poverty with wealth and urbanization with agricultural diminishment. If the colonized locations served for the outsiders’ purposes then the natives felt necessity to imagine, seek or discover ‘second’ land (Culture 271-272).

Said then introduces the final process of transformation during which the colonial space must be transformed sufficiently not to appear foreign to the imperial eye. He refers to Brien Friel’s play Translation in which the author says that “In such a process the colonized is typically [supposed to be] passive and spoken for, does not control its own representation but is represented in accordance with a hegemonic impulse by which it is constructed as a stable and unitary entity” (Culture 273).

7.4. The meaning of God

The dramatic structure in most Shaffer’s plays is supplied with the motifs of God and multiple varieties of Gods that establish the moral conflict between the characters. For instance, Pizarro in The Royal Hunt embarks on an economic expedition but the subject of the play turns into questing for a particular kind of God represented by Atahuallpa. The theme of divinity triggers the conflict in the plays and serves as a communicative platform that catalyses streams of thoughts. The protagonists deliver messages to their Gods but are answered only by silence. The monologues afterward return upon the speakers and their

38 memories uncovering the crucial fragments of their lives and the soliloquies presented by Pizarro in The Royal Hunt and Salieri in Amadeus signalize the climax in the plays. The ‘silent God’ stimulates the crisis of the characters while they remain spiritually isolated (Shaffer, Hilský 37).

I did not live on earth to be His joke for eternity. I have one trick left me – see how he deals with this! (Confidentially, to Audience) All this week I have been shouting out about murder. You heard me yourselves – do you remember? (Shaffer “Amadeus” 99)

Religious conception is prominent throughout Shaffer’s work. Despite the compelling settings in different times and environments, the masterpieces are common in exploration of search for Gods, the attempt to make a contact with them and the crisis when the protagonists elude them. Shaffer sets a clash between Catholic and Pagan divinity and different religious visions of the world which is intensified by the massacre of the Inca tribe. The Inca chief personifies an embodiment of God that he eventually loses. Again, Shaffer imposes his dramatic form a silent God that the Inca King renounces by the act of baptism. There is no response from above, and coming to his death by burning at the stake, Atahuallpa is divested of the possibility to follow the pathway to his God-Sun and undergo the process of reincarnation.

The Royal Hunt of the Sun is simply divided into Act 1 The Hunt and Act 2 The Kill the former extending the motifs of long-lasting search for God and the latter, ironically, its murder when is finally found. Pizarro is a desperate man who has lost a trust in his own religion and feels attracted by the worship of the Inca rites. He becomes spiritually – and literally, by the rope in one part of the play – bound to Atahuallpa, but he is not able to maintain the union (de Ituarte 70).

PIZARRO. Yes. Yes . . . yes. (Bitterly.) How clever. He’s understood everything I’ve said to him these awful months – all the secret pain he’s heard – and this is his revenge. This futile joke. How he must hate me. (Tightening the rope.) Oh, yes, you cunning bastard! Look Martin – behold, my God. I’ve got the Sun on my string! I can make it rise: (He pulls the Inca’s arm up) – or set! He throws the INCA to his knees. (Shaffer, “The Royal Hunt” 76)

What attracts him to the Inca is the latter’s composure and mental balance rather than his beliefs. Pizarro is a solitaire and despises organised religions: “Dungballs to all churches that are or ever could be! How I hate you . . . (Shaffer “The Royal Hunt” 71), yet he is seeking a sort of release from his inner turmoil and, fascinated by the Inca King’s harmony and assertion “I need no one”( Shaffer “The Royal Hunt” 61) is impressed even more and nearly seems to be convinced about the Inca’s sacred power. He further explains “He has some meaning for me, this Man-God. An immortal man in whom all his people live completely. He has an answer for time” (Shaffer “The Royal Hunt” 45). In turn, Atahuallpa willingly extends his personal embrace to the conquistador . . . “Believe in me. I will give you a word and fill you with joy. For you I will do a great thing. I will swallow death and spit it out of me.” (Shaffer “The Royal Hunt” 76). Should Pizarro feel tempted to believe in the act of reincarnation it is not that the pagan religion is more reasonable than the Christian, but it lies in the fascination by the completeness of the Inca’s personality (de Ituarte 70).

PIZARRO. It’s the only way to give life meaning! To blast out of time and live forever, us, in our own persons. This is the law: die in despair or be a God yourself!... Look at him: always so calm as if the teeth of life never bit him… or the teeth of death. What if it was really true, Martin? That I’ve gone God-hunting and caught one. A being who can renew his life over and over? (Shaffer “The Royal Hunt” 75)

As noticed in the introductory part of this thesis, Shaffer allows his human individuals defy God’s superiority despite the personal loss they eventually suffer. Salieri bears the sign of biblical Cain, as portrayed in the Old Testament. Cain murdered his younger brother Abel under the weight of grievance and jealousy because God rejected his sacrificial gift, which was not worthy enough and accepted only the offering from Cain’s brother Abel. Cain, filled with a feeling of injustice, killed his brother. As a verdict, God signed Cain and let him wander the world as a homeless drifter (“Genesis 4”). This biblical resemblance forms Salieri into a sort of a mysterious creature. He pleaded God to be exceptional, but kept gifting him with assets of average values. He killed his ‘Abel’ and till the end of his life served punishment in the form of remorse, despair and semi-madness

8. The plays in the context of postmodernism

This part of my thesis tries to integrate Shaffer’s writing into the context of the postmodern conceptual perception of colonial and post-colonial era, and to explore how the plays contribute to the Eurocentric consideration of subordinating other nations by the applied law of mental sovereignty. The motif of one culture dominance emerges in both Shaffer’s plays, Amadeus and The Royal Hunt of the Sun. and my effort is to integrate this motif in the concept of post-colonial culture.

8.1. The postmodern view of cultural dominance

From the perspective of colonialism developing in the sixteenth century, the prevailing objective of The Royal Hunt of the Sun appears to be a criticism of how one nation is becoming subordinate to the dominance of another. The beginning of European colonization, expanding far beyond the other continents’ boundaries, included westernizing the savage nations on the basis of white civilization maturity. This motif can be assumed from Shaffer’s play which is set in Peru, conquered by Spanish missionary. It can also well reflect similar expansive practices of the British Empire, which once happened to be the most extended representative of imperialism until as late as the end of nineteenth century.

The consequence of colonization and the impact on the native peoples’ lives is dealt thoroughly by Edward W. Said in his works. His book Culture and imperialism develops the general patterns of the relationship between the modern metropolitan West and its overseas territories in writings by significant British authors of Victorian epoch. His highly critical writing proves a parallel with Shaffer’s inclination to depict European efforts towards ruling distant lands and peoples as well as

the stereotypes about ‘the African (or Indian or Irish or Jamaican or Chinese) mind’, the notions about bringing civilization to primitive or barbaric peoples, the disturbingly familiar ideas about flogging or death or extended punishment being required when ‘they’ misbehaved or became rebellious, because ‘they’ mainly understood force of violence best, ‘they’ were not like ‘us’, and for that reason deserved to be ruled. (Culture xi, xii)

8.2. The Royal Hunt of the Sun and Joseph Conrad’s Marlow

Two main factors were associated with the era of colonization and later decolonization: the general worldwide pattern of imperial culture and historical experience of resistance against empire (Said “Culture” xii). The deeper is Pizarro getting into the native, savage territory, the more he is becoming overwhelmed by the surrounding wildness and the more uncertain and indecisive impression he gives.

Such narrative features are held in Culture and Imperialism referring to Joseph Conrad’s novel The Heart of Darkness. Conrad wrote his novel between 1898 and 1899, times that symbolized a maturity of the British Empire imperialistic politics worldwide, including Africa, where this novel is set. The main character Marlow, then, according to Said’s theory, acts as an imperialist representative exploring deep in the heart of the black continent – the ‘darkness’ that becomes subordinate to the dominance of a European nation (Said “Culture” 32).

The story is set on the deck of a boat running down the river Congo, continuously leaving a civilized world familiar with European way of living and steaming towards an unknown, unexplored, mysterious, dark destination. Therefore, the river itself symbolizes a link between the ‘lightness’, meaning fully colonized and civilized lands, and the ‘darkness’, native and savage world that seems inaccessible to imperialistic intentions. The point is to show the imperial mastery of white Europeans over black Africans, the civilization over the primitive. The resemblance between Marlow’s adventurous voyage and Pizarro’s mission in Peru lies in the fact that both are overwhelmed by the circumstance they face and both reassess the purpose of their journey.

Pizarro represents Spanish royal demands but he could as well represent the British, thus his ‘hunt for the Sun’ is just as relevant for imperialism of the British Empire, which was said that the sun never set on, since it spanned as far as the other side of the world hemisphere. Therefore, Shaffer’s criticism of imperialism may have allowed him to highlight western world intentions that the ever-present darkness in Peru, or wherever else, could be illuminated, the light could be brought to the dark places and peoples by employing western schemes of life by a will or power (Said “Culture” 33).

8.3. The colonizers versus the colonized

I would like to aim at what the objects of criticism in Shaffer’s Royal Hunt are. According to Said’s theory, colonialism is consequence of the practice and attitude of dominating centres to rule distant territories, meaning the implanting of settlement in the lands (Culture 8). Shaffer introduces the attempt of domination by implementation of Christianity in non-Christian world. The mission of the conquest is lead in uncompromised visions of turning the savage natives into civilized society regardless of their cultural and historical background. Shaffer emphasizes the unscrupulous selfishness and ruthlessness impelled by sick ideology through which ‘the only truth’ and ‘the only right thoughts’ are delivered to the West Indian people. Furthermore, the vocabulary addressing the colonized nation is loaded with words and concepts such as “the land of Anti-Christ”, “Show them rigour!” and “pagan dust” (Shaffer “The Royal Hunt”) which, according to Said, are ideological formations carrying a message that certain territories and people ‘require’ domination (Culture 8).

Said, on the other hand, refers to an idea propagated by J.R. Seeley that some of the initial overseas territories were acquired ‘absentmindedly’, without any imperialistic concepts, but is very doubtful about this idea as it does not account for the persistence and systematized acquisition and administration of these empires (Culture 9). Then it is a matter of consideration whether Pizarro is a sole representative of colonial criticism or just an absent- minded explorer whose expansive adventures were not framed into structural concepts until later era of imperialism. He, therefore, can be perceived as a primitive anti-hero with personal ambitions to reach the heights of his life career or as the initiator of the colonization process which was later adopted and domesticated by the British.

Especially the communication between Pizarro and Atahuallpa reminds the practises the British colonizers employed in their overseas lands. Those included a certain respect to the native authorities and maintaining the intro-political agenda by the colonized. This progress in colonization was beneficial for both sides since it had been assumed that only the citizens who were culturally rooted to their territory could successfully manage the economy. This mechanism originated the common sense of the natives who remained in the colonies since the very first days. Concerning with the colonialist practices and imperialist ideology Said points out that despite the bitterness and humiliations of the experience, many native people believe they gained benefits in terms of liberal ideas, national self-consciousness and technological goods that over passed time made imperialism more humanized. In the post-

43 colonial era they also deal better with the difficulties in the newly independent states (Culture 18).

From the post-modernist point of view the book caricatures Westerners rethinking of the colonization era, questioning the process of decolonization. It implies that western democracies feel a state of ingratitude since it was ‘them’ who provided ‘the others’ with order and stability that ‘they’ (the others) have lost and who had been given progress and modernization.

Said, referring to Rushdie’s The Satan Verses gives space to the theoretical thinking of some Third World intellectuals who claim that most of the present barbarities, tyrannies and degradations are ascribed to their own native histories before colonialism (Culture 23). That seems to contrast with Shaffer’s depiction of the West Indian social system (which can be referred to any colonized society) as harmonic and disciplined, with its people faithful to their chief.

Shaffer addresses the conflict between men’s free will and the will of the group. While the Inca worships his Sun-God freely, the Spaniards worship the King Carlos V and European traditions as if they were law. Shaffer depicts the conflict between “separate worship and codification” (The Royal Hunt vii). Atahuallpa is presented as a man who stands alone without the need of any attachment to socializing power or institution. He represents the value of being self and independent of any external control. Shaffer tends to back the native concepts strongly and structures the colonizers as undisciplined, argumentative, untruthful flaws who get overwhelmed by the impact of the manners and way of thinking of the colonized (de Ituarte 71):

ATAHUALLPA. All your pictures are of prisons and chains.

DE NIZZA. All life is chains. We are chained to food, and fire in the winter. To innocence lost but its memory unlost. And to needing each other.

ATAHUALLPA. I need no one. (Shaffer “The Royal Hunt” 49-50)

The Spaniards are intruders who gain superiority by employing a violent assault using western arsenal of weapons along with a scheme of institutions that demonstrate the western advanced social maturity. Shaffer deals with the greediness of the colonizers and the institutionalized

44 patterns of western thinking, in his play represented Christianity imposed on the West Indians in Peru. He may share similar perspective of the pro-imperialistic role of Victorian novel with Said who in his Culture and Imperialism discusses the contribution of novelists, especially British novelists, to the process of colonization.

He considers that “the novel as a cultural artefact of bourgeois society and imperialism are unthinkable without each other”. Literally he claims that

Of all the major literary forms, the novel is the most recent, its emergence the most datable, its occurrence the most Western, its normative pattern of social authority the most structured. Imperialism and the novel fortified each other to such a degree that it is impossible, I would argue, to read one without in some way dealing with the other. (Culture 84)

8.4. The role of the hero

The impact of the novel is in its form containing regulated plot mechanism and system of social reference with its institutions of bourgeois society, authorities and power. The hero or heroine is allowed adventures in which end he or she will touch his or her limits, the authors reveal where they direct and what they can become. Such a hero or heroine therefore experiences death as he or she by virtue of overflowing energy do not fit into the orderly scheme of things or they stabilize usually in the form of marriage or confirmed identity (Said “Culture”.84). Shaffer allows Pizarro to question the established orders of western civilization and even more, he lets him convert to ‘the others’ side. Pizarro dies humbled, ashamed with a silent reproach, not as a hero of his own adventures, but rather as an old, betrayed and soul- broken man run out of energy. The promise he has been given by Atahuallpa is not fulfilled and when the Inca King dies Pizarro faces the bare truth of human death rather than spiritual divinity and resurrection.

PIZARRO. Cheat! You’ve cheated me! Cheat…

For a moment his old body is racked with sobs, then, surprised, he feels tears on his cheek. He examines them. The sunlight brightens on his head.

What’s this? What is it? In all your life you never made one of these, I know, and I not till this minute. Look (He kneels to show the dead Inca.) Ah, no. You have no eyes for me now, Atahuallpa: they are dusty balls of amber I can tap on. You have no peace for me, Atahuallpa: the birds still scream in your forest. You have no joy for me, Atahuallpa, my boy: the only joy is in death. I lived between two hates: I die between two darks: blind eyes and a blind sky. (Shaffer “The Royal Hunt” 79)

8.5. Shaffer’s plays in the context of Edward Said’s critical thinking

Concerning British postmodern theatre, this post-colonial consideration of imperialism and colonialism is relevant in order to fully grasp Shaffer’s characters and the message they deliver to future generations. Detailed research into the colonial epoch is conducted in Edward Said’s another book Orientalism. Said, born as Palestinian living in the United States, stands on the pendulum between Near/Middle East and Western world. Assumed of both lifestyle and thinking of the colonized and the colonizers, Said demonstrates practices of newcomers expanding into culturally diverse backgrounds and the consequence of such movements.

His ideas support better understanding of Shaffer’s characters, acting in specific time eras since not only Pizarro but also Mozart ought to be perceived as intruders in well-settled political and cultural regime. Seemingly unrelated to the topic of this thesis, I have found in the book many parallels between Said’s critical view and Shaffer’s message being reproduced through the utterance of his figures.

Regarding, for instance, the topic of the characters in the land, the significance of such a territory settled by the natives involves the relationship between knowledge and geography. The author refers to Claude Lévi-Strauss’ theory called A science of the concrete in which he explains the assignment of primitive tribes to a definite place, function and importance of every fauna and flora species living in the immediate environment. This theory is based on the fact that even though not all the knowledge of the species has its practical use, the point is that it provides mind with order that is achieved by taking notes of everything around and the

46 mind is aware of, and thus give the things their role in the environment (Said “Orientalism” 53).

It may reveal the ambiguity of the Sun in Shaffer’s The Royal Hunt, as the symbol carries different message to either, the Inca tribe and the missionaries. Pizarro reaches for the ‘heart’ of Peru, initially represented by the golden treasure - the ‘Sun’ from the title of Shaffer’s play, and which is later substituted by the ‘heart’ (or the ‘Sun’) of Atahuallpa’s personality and grace. The Inca’s Sun is rather spiritual, whereas the glitter of the gold might function as a symbol of ‘illumination’ the tribe with a new ideology. The final motif of the sun lies in the Incas’ bloodshed resembling the sunset Pizarro observes by the dusk.

PIZARRO . . . Where does the sun rest at night?

DE SOTO. Nowhere. It’s a heavenly body set by God to move round the earth in perpetual motion.

PIZARRO. How do you know this?

DE SOTO. All Europe knows it.

PIZARRO. What if they were wrong? If it settled here each evening, somewhere in those great mountains, like a God laid down to sleep? To a savage mind it must make a fine God. I myself can’t fix anything nearer to a thought of worship than standing at dawn and watching it fill the world. Like coming of something eternal, against going flesh . . . (Shaffer “The Royal Hunt” 32-33).

Concerning the geographical distinction Said argues that some objects are made up only in people’s mind and appear only in a fictional reality, concerning especially the creation of boundaries between lands and their surroundings arbitrarily, and the consequent addressing ‘us’, and those living beyond ‘them’. Again he points out that such formulation is engaged by the outsiders and does not require the ‘barbarians’ to acknowledge the distinction between familiar ‘ours’ and unfamiliar ‘theirs’ because the barbaric people are supposed to follow the boundaries accordingly (Orientalism 54).

It is regarded as natural that all cultures impose corrections on others by the principle of changing the ‘raw reality’ into ‘units of knowledge’. This conversion is historically natural as different cultures have always inclined to impose transformations on other cultures, turning

47 them into what they should be like for the benefits of the receiver. What, however, western colonizers practiced was regarding the colonized cultures as aspects of their own history. Some German Romantics, for example, considered Indian religion as essentially an Oriental version of Germano-Christian pantheism (Said “Orientalism” 67). Other pre-romantic and romantic artists, on the other hand, believed that all cultures were organically coherent, bound together by a spirit or national ideas which the outsider could “penetrate only by an act of historical sympathy” (Said “Orientalism” 118) as, for instance, Mozart did in his The Magic Flute in which Masonic codes intermingle with visions of Orient (Said “Orientalism” 118).

Said in Afterward to 1995 Printing of his book Orientalism considers a post-modern explanation for current world scene and attempts of cultural and political comprehension (meaning world scene of the nineties of the twentieth century). He assumes that people again tend to return to nationalism and theories of radical distinction between different cultures and civilizations, which the author regards as “a falsely all-inclusive” (330). As an example of this theory he introduces a publication called Clash of civilizations by Professor Samuel Huntington of Harvard University based on the premise that, for instance, Western and Islamic civilizations among others were mainly interested in fending off one another (Said “Orientalism” 348). Edward Said reckons his theory as ridiculous since modern realization that cultures are hybrid and heterogeneous is taken for granted and universally acknowledged. He argues that cultures and civilizations are interrelated and interdependent as to claim their individuality.

How can one speak today of “Western civilization” except as in large measure an ideological fiction, implying a sort of detached superiority for a handful of values and ideas, none of which has much meaning outside the history of conquest, immigration, travel and the mingling of peoples that gave the Western nations their present mixed identities? (Orientalism 349)

Finally, the author summarizes the purpose and message of his book, which has relevantly supported this thesis and helped to see the identities of Shaffer’s characters from extensive perspective, in a paragraph in which he explicitly comments against theories of separation of cultures and peoples:

And this was one of the implied messages of Orientalism, that any attempt to force cultures and peoples into separate and distinct breeds or essences exposes not only the misrepresentations and falsifications that ensue, but also the way in which understanding is complicit with the power to produce such things as the “Orient” or the “West.” (Orientalism 349)

9. Conclusion

The purpose of my thesis was to analyse the characters featuring the plays Amadeus and The Royal Hunt of the Sun in the concept of postmodernism and to introduce the personality of Peter Shaffer as a significant representative of the British postmodern theatre.

The introductory part is dedicated to the comprehensive overview of the playwright’s career in order to awaken the general awareness about the author and his work. It briefly summarizes the years before his career as a serious writer began, and the following times of his early plays when he began to be recognized publicly and in theatrical circles. It further examines his dramatic style of writing, the technique of story-telling and supplying it to the audience. One of the characteristics of Shaffer’s writing is the skill to establish dual conflict guiding the audience throughout the play and to provide an unexpected turn in the climax. For a long time Shaffer remained faithful to the traditional concept of well-made play, which he stepped out from by completion The Royal Hunt of the Sun.

Subsequently, I introduce the author within a context of the Czech theatre since the adaptations of his several comedies and plays, especially Amadeus and recently presented Equus, occupy an important position in the Czech theatrical environment.

In the main part of the thesis I analyse the characters of Mozart and Salieri and the conflict between the two composers established on their different personalities and opposing attitudes to life. In Amadeus the mutual rivalry is brought into ad absurdum and proves the Shaffer’s quality in dealing with human mediocrity and natural spirit. Partly based on fictional imagination and partly on historical facts, the story appears very realistic, which the author explains in the Introduction to The Play Amadeus. Both plays rely on religious motif and the condemnation of God as the mast of the stories leading the characters to moral purification but also to tragic conclusion. Both Salieri and Pizarro are, however, supposed to be viewed not only as the catalysts of human tragedy but, above all, as ‘normal’ human beings whose moral processes identify with our own. They are victims of their jealousy and frustration whilst Mozart and Atahuallpa respectively, represent the confessors through which they blame God for passivity.

The technique of double male characters employed by Shaffer sets the model of confrontation with the rivalry the protagonists have to stand face to face. One tends to imitate the desire of the other, which leads to raising the conflict in the plays. Since both crave for the identical

50 object, they commit to achieving the same goal, which seems to be the core issue in Shaffer’s two-role-character plays. Salieri envies Mozart’s geniality and gifted dispositions same as Pizarro envies the young Martin’s virtues and the Inca chief’s natural grace and dignity.

The social issue is expressed by the way of thinking of individualists who rage against the law of well-established etiquette and social manners. This motif appears not only in Amadeus in the character of Mozart entering Vienna full of envy, gossips and bureaucracy, but also in other Shaffer’s plays. Pizarro is a solitary man who confronts the collective establishment of the Incas and turns his desire for materialistic fortune to questing for spirituality. Walter Langer in one of the earlier Shaffer’s plays Five Finger Exercise is swirled into the affairs of the hosting Harrington’s family and becomes a victim of manipulation, and Mark Askelon in Shrivings acts as an intruder breaking the settled rules of Gideon Petrie’s community.

These are the strengths in Shaffer’s dramatic approach that might reflect his personal experience from his early writing career, when his own father discouraged the young author from further development as a playwright. Shaffer’s characters fight for their free will by which the author expresses his negative attitude to the manipulative tendency of any institutionalized power.

The dramatic structure of the plays is weaved from fibres of religious conception. The characters examine many crisis while they are losing their faith or they are searching for new divinity. Since they are not given any response from God, they keep lamenting over the fate and suffer moral injustice. Shaffer, on the one hand, allows his Salieri and Pizarro call on the superior institution, but at the same time he notifies that the only response they can expect is silence.

From the perspective of postmodern critical thinking, Peter Shaffer appears to demonstrate the concept of subordinating one nation by another. Educated in the British history, the author might introduce the underway of British colonial movement in his play The Royal Hunt of the Sun, in which he explicitly reveals the domination of Western culture over a foreign territory. He might express his criticism towards the intention of western imperialism to illuminate the ‘dark’ countries far beyond the boundaries of European lands, and support the resistance of the natives. The symbol of illumination is represented by the Sun in the play that first symbolizes the bloodshed of the Inca tribe when Pizarro refers to the sunset over the Peru territory, next it is the symbol of the gold that the Spaniards are searching for, and finally, the Sun-God of the Inca King that eventually becomes the main goal of the royal hunt.

Shaffer’s thorough blending of fiction and historical study materials seems to be a lucky combination that supplies both plays with a firm dramatic framework and allows to portray the tragedy of human maliciousness, social greediness and falseness. The plays conduct into the protagonists’ personal characteristics, their attitudes and thoughts which the audience seem to identify with. Peter Shaffer’s research into people’s mentality appears to be the core point of the successful performance of his plays on worldwide stages.

Notes

1 cattivo: (Italian) nasty, bad.

2 The Marriage of Figaro: Mozart’s opera La Nozze di Figaro was first performed in Vienna in 1786. ‘Non piu andrai’ is an aria in the first actin which Figaro tells the page Cherubino, who is about to be sent off to join the army, that he must get used to the idea of putting the pleasures and advantages of his present way of life behind him. The march-like character of the piece is very in keeping with the context in which it is heard. The introduction of the tune at this particular point in the play serves as an ironic warning to Salieri that his way of life is about to be rudely changed.

3 Kapellmeister: originally the term kapelle was used to describe the entire musical staff (including clergy, singers, instrumentalists) employed in a royal chapel. Later, it came to mean any organized group of musicians employed at court. The Kapellmeister was the director or conductor of a kapelle.

4 The Abduction from the Seraglio: Mozart’s opera Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail was first performed on 16 July 1782.

Works cited

 Shaffer, Peter. Amadeus. Harlow, Essex: Longman Group, 1984. Print.  Shaffer, Peter. Amadeus: a play. Rev. ed. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1981. Print.  Shaffer, Peter. Amadeus: čtvrtá premiéra padesáté třetí sezóny 1997/1998. Brno: Městské divadlo, 1997  Shaffer, Peter. Three plays. London: Penguin Books, 1976. Print.  Trussler, Simon. Peter Shaffer: The royal hunt of the sun. London: British Council, 1973. Print.  Shaffer, Peter. The royal hunt of the sun: a play concerning the conquest of Peru. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1964. Print.  Said, W. Edward. Orientalism. London: Penguin Books, 1995. Print.  Said, W. Edward. Culture and imperialism. London: Vintage, 1994. Print.  Elsom, John. Post-war British theatre. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1979. Print.  Ituarte, de Maite. “The royal hunt of the sun: Peter Shaffer and the quest for God.” http://rua.ua.es/. Web. 15 Feb 2014  MacMurraugh-Kavanagh, Madeleine. “Peter Shaffer: Theatre and drama.” http:/palgraveconnect.com. Web. 10 Mar 2014  Block, Ed. “The plays of Peter Shaffer and the mimetic of René Girard.” https://journals.ku.edu. Web. 10 Mar 2014  Andrade, Gabriel. “René Girard.” The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ISSN 2161-0002, http://www.iep.utm.edu/. Web. 17 Mar 2014  DeVito, Joseph. “Interpersonal messages.” https://moodlnka.ped.muni.cz/mod/book/view. Web. 15 Feb 2014  “Cain and Abel.” Holy Bible, New international version. Biblica, Inc., 2011. Web. 20 Dec 2013  Hulec, Vladimír. “Královským honem na slunce postupuje vinohradské divadlo proti proudu času.” http://kultura.idnes.cz/. Web. 20 Dec 2013  “Peter Shaffer.” Divadelní ústav. Web. 18 Mar 2014

Abstract

This thesis comprises analytical research into the characters of Wolfgang Mozart, Antonio Salieri and Fancisco Pizarro in the plays Amadeus and The Royal Hunt of the Sun written by an eminent English playwright and screenwriter Peter Shaffer. It further integrates these plays into the concept of postmodernism.

The introductory part sets Peter Shaffer in the context of postmodern British theatre and subsequently, introduces those of his plays that have been adapted for the Czech theatres. Primarily, however, it examines the protagonists’ personal characteristics, their attitudes and thoughts within a perception of their social and cultural background. It develops the topic of social individualism and collectivism represented by the protagonists, the context of high and low society and communicative devices they handle.

It also places an emphasis on the role of God as one of the main motifs that Shaffer employs in his plays by means of allowing his characters to release their desires through a quest for divinity. Furthermore, Shaffer’s dramatic technique of dual male rivalry reflects the tendency of the society to imitate other people’s desires as the matter of moral compensation.

The final part conducts a critical look into the era of imperialism from the perspective of postmodernism within the context of the plays.