Daily News du lieu suivant : New York, New York • 673

'Amadeus' questions the gift of genius By DOUGLAS WATT AMADEUS. Plav or Petar Shaffar. Wit la McKaHan, Tim ourry, jaaa mtimw, ornara. uncn vy Kali. ProaocHon dmlgiwdtar Jon tury.

Mrntc el rct4 Nnnn irrwruviia. in ml arran fcroadhwrat. 4 "CV 1 4 ft I keyboard and suddenly listening to the drip, drip, drip of the raindrops. LATER, IN nOPES of securing a' court tutoring appointment for her impoverished husband, we find a res igned Consume arriving at Salieri's home to matter-of actly unbutton her blouse, raise her skirts and spread her legs with an okay-let's get it-over with attitude that Immediately and understandably turns Salieri off. And still later, obviously using the license that this Is all in the dying composer's Imagination (though without letting us in on the truth), we have Salieri himself appearing as the mysterious gray stranger associated with the "Requiem" (actually, it was the servant of a man who wished to commission the work In honor of his dead wif eX Well, It's a good show on its own terms, this "Amadeus," and even the recorded bits of Mozart funneled in by casette from a console manned at the rear of the house" can bring tears to one's eyes.

Jane Seymour is far lovelier than the real Constanze was said (by Mozart himself) to be. And Nicholas Keproi as the Austrian emperor Joseph II; Louis Turenne as the Baron van Swleten who gets Mozart Into the Masons and then (according to Shaffer) is enraged at Mozart's employment of Masonic ritual in "The Magic and others play their parts ably under the masterly direction of Hall (a superb Mozart director, too, by the way). John Bury has designed the production handsomely. There are only hints in Shaffer's long play of the madly pleasure-loving, dance-crazed and ever-intriguing Vienna of the day, in which the in-group (after all, there was Righini besides Salieri, and countless other musical lights resentful of this young upstart, the child prodigy turned man-child) conspired to hold its place at all costs. Still and all, in Salieri, Shaffer has created a fascinating, multi-faceted character, and McKellen plays him with thundering virtuosity.

Jane Seymour and Ian McKellen In a scene from "Amadeus" Peter Shaffer, the author of last night's "Amadeus" at the Broadhurst, has said that once it was done he realized he had written an opera. But what "Amadeus" boils down to is a very clever monodrama about a man named Antonio Salieri with a couple of dozen peripheral figures, including the title character Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart London's National Theater, where "Amadeus" began and is still on view with Paul Scofield in the central role, goes in for lavish presentations when the budget allows, and this "Amadeus" is a resplendent production staged by Peter Hall and boasting a magisterial performance by Ian McKellen as Mozart's chief nemesis Salieri THE STORY, WHICH covers Mozart's Vienna years (1781-91), the last 10 years in the life of the incredibly fecund genius who In a sense burned himself out to die at 35 of a kidney ailment, is told as a flashback by the aged Salieri, the once-lionized court composer who tried, unsuccessfully, to kill himself In 1823. Out of guilt? Guilt for having nipped the younger man's promising career, if not his astonishing productivity, in the bud? Guilt for having perhaps poisoned Mozart, a wild but unsubstantiated rumor? Or, more likely, 6imply due to old age, infirmity, neglect, the bitter awareness of his mediocrity, and the wandering mind of an ancient Alongside a childlike, unattractive, foul-mouthed. Impudent grinningly ill-behaved, amoral, and finally poverty-stricken fellow from whom, for reasons none of us seeking to unlock the secret of art can ever possibly know, music of unparalleled beauty and purity poured, there is only the figure of Salieri to penetrate our minds. That and snatches disarm criticism by stating that he has studied virtually everything written in English on Mozart (and that means mountains), inventing here and there solely for dramatic purposes, one can't help calling him to account for several highly questionable, even vulgar, episodes.

When, for example, the 25-year-old Mozart is introduced at court, Salieri plays a little march he has composed for the occasion. Having thanked Salieri, Mozart proceeds to play it straight through on the harpsichord (no great difficulty for a trained musician), and then embellish it in a variation that turns into a model for Figaro's teasing little first-act send-off for Cherubino, "Non piu andral," In "The Marriage of Figaro." We are not too far removed here from Cary Grant as Cole Porter, sitting thoughtfully at the of piped-in music. Mozart, in Tim Curry's amusingly oafish, jerky, ankle-bending, slobberingly good-natured and unrestrainedly self-praising porrtrait arouses in us only a sense of shock, rather as if Jerry Lewis or Michael J. Pollard were cast in the part THIS, OP COURSE, is Shaffer's point the immeasurable nature of genius, and the incomprehensible willingness of a cruel God to bestow it on such a loutish creature instead of a true believer, a decent man, an accomplished musician who reveres his maker and humbles himself before him that he might achieve greatness. Instead, Salieri achieves intense cynicism and gall, -and in McKellen's rich, robust bravura performanmce we see Salieri turn from a God-fearing man to a God-hating and vengeful one.

Although Shaffer has attempted to By KATHLEEN CARROLL fryyya; i 'A v-- -v 1 -yf. jf i a v. THI MIRROR CRACK'D. Anatla Lint burr, EllTabath Taylor. Dlractatf by Our Mammon, At Mia Haw Yorkar RKO Cirwrama Manhattaa i.

wawarty. Runmna itmai I hour, 44 itilnufM. Ratad PO. She may no longer be the fairest of them all, but. Elizabeth Taylor has become adept at spoofing her Hollywood glamor girl image.

In "The Mirror Crack'd," a stale-looking old-fashioned movie featuring Agatha Christie's beloved detective heroine, Miss Marple, she takes time out to gaze into a mirror and is obviously not too pleased with what she sees. "Bags, bags go away," pleads Taylor. "And come right back on Doris Day." Indeed, it is such fun watching Taylor bat her violet eyes at the camera and deliver her tart lines as an aging movie star trying for a career comeback that the other actors, possibly because they didn't have the benefit of Taylor's personal make-up artist look completely pale and insignificant next to her. Only Kim Novak, who throws all her considerable curves (Novak has, with the help of a corset retained the sexy figure of a starlet) into her role as a rival movie star, holds her own with Taylor and their catty exchanges are about all that saves "The Mirror "I'm so glad you've not only kept your gorgeous figure you've added so much to it" says Novak, whose arrival at a pre-production party causes Taylor's fabulous face to instantly freeze with hatred (it turns out that there may be other reasons for Taylor's "frozen Says Taylor in an appropriately venomous voice as they manage a friendly pose for the photographers, "Darling, there are only two things I like about you your face." But with the bitchy Hollywood Jokes getting all the laughs, the movie's main character, the delicious-ly nosy Miss Marple (played with brisk determination by Angela Lansbury), is all but overlooked. An Injured foot forces her to solve the murder of a local housewife a gushing fan of the Taylor character who dies after nearly boring the star to death with her tale of their first encounter from her drawing room, while her nephew (Edward Fox), a Scotland Yard inspector, does the legwork for her.

In fact Miss Marple fails to have the usual face-to-face showdown with the key suspects in the case which is always the best part of any Agatha Christie whodunit In the long run, "The Mirror Crack'd" is done In by Guy Hamilton's uninspired direction and sloppy, lighting (as in "A Little Night Music," the shadowy lighting is supposed to conceal Taylor's double chin, but it only looks as if she had failed to wash her -neck). It might have been wiser simply to revive the early Miss Marple movies in which the late Margaret Rutherford forever endeared herself as the sharp-eyed Britisher who maintains an insatiable curiosity about "human Matt 'WKAuaai I Crack'd" from putting the audience to-sieep. I 'A Lite' ends 1 "A Life," the Hugh Leonard comedy with Pat I Hingle, Roy-Dotrice, Aideen O'Kelly and Helen Stenborg, is closing after the Jan. 3 performance at i theMorosco. Angela Lansbury and Edward Fox In The Mirror Crack'd".