Trying to Like Shaffer

Trying to Like Shaffer Michael Hinden Even Peter Shaffer’s detractors have praised his theatrical craftsmanship. Shaffer is without peer among contemporary dramatists in exploiting the theater’s full range of expressive means, including such devices as mime, masks, gesture, music, elaborate costuming, color, special lighting, and auditory effects. In discussing his own work, Shaffer takes particular interest in the mise en scene. He has generous praise for his set designers and for those directors who contribute effective “business” during rehearsals. He revises conscientiously, aiming for dra­ matic clarity and visual effect. Shaffer’s proper delight with his revision of a crucial scene in the second act of Amadeus is indicative. Here as Mozart’s jealous rival, Antonio Salieri, at­ tends the first production of The Magic Flute, the monumental silhouette of Mozart’s father appears from inside a spectacular Light Box. According to the stage directions, “A great sun does indeed rise inside the Light Box, and standing in it the gigantic silhouette of a priestly figure extending its arms to the world in universal greeting.” At the same moment, Salieri, sharing an important moral discovery with the audience, proclaims excit­ edly: “And in this sun—behold—I saw his father. No more an accusing figure, but forgiving! The Highest Priest of the Order— his hand extended to the world in love!”l Of this revision Shaffer writes: “I must confess to a fondness for this new scene. It is rowdy and vigorous; it contains devices of mime which are pleasingly theatrical; it dramatizes the moment—previously only hinted at—when Salieri perceives Mozart to be himself the Flute of God... .”2 A magnificent scene it is indeed, for surely no one writing for today’s stage is better able to visualize a dramatic moment than Peter Shaffer. MICHAEL HINDEN is Associate Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin—Madison. He is a specialist in modem drama and has previously pub­ lished in Comparative Drama and other journals. 14 Michael Hindert 15 At issue for many critics, though, is whether Shaffer’s tech­ nical virtuosity serves as a substitute for dramatic content. There have been persistent complaints that Shaffer’s theatrical gifts are superficial and that his mastery of the stage merely disguises the inadequacy of his ideas. Thus Robert Brustein on The Royal Hunt of the Sun: “without spectacular theatricality, the play amounts to very little”;3 Barry Witham on Equus: “its theatrical fireworks cannot mask its muddled logic and tired philosophy”;4 and Jack Kroll on Amadeus: “a large-voiced treatment of large themes, whose essential superficiality is masked by skillful theatricality.”5 I wish to suggest in response that Shaffer’s com­ mentators have not concentrated fully on the subtlety and power of his central themes and that their charges of superficiality therefore are inappropriate. However, in order to arrive at a balanced assessment of Shaffer’s theatrical gifts, it may be appro­ priate to consider the effectiveness of his dramatic language. That aspect of Shaffer’s art has not yet been discussed adequately. The two issues are related, because in addition to Shaffer’s admirable stagecraft, his verbal fluency may give the impression of glossing his recalcitrant thematic materials. Indeed, if Shaffer has any flaw, it seems to lie not in the paucity of his conceptions, but in the overabundance of his dramatic language. Unlike Pinter, Beckett, Mamet, and other dramatists whose elliptical dialogue has shaped the contemporary theater, Shaffer is given to sustained and flowing oratory. A master of prose, he is adept at balance and antithesis, sonorous rhythm, mellifluous phras­ ing, epigrammatic precision, and every variety of figurative speech. Yet in a sense Shaffer may be too fastidious a craftsman; his wood is finished so expertly that sometimes we can miss the grain. Consider, for example, this speech from The Royal Hunt of the Sun, in which Pizarro confides to a comrade the loss of his sexual passion. The metaphor overrides the thought. I’m an old man, Cavalier, I can explain nothing. What I mean is: Time whipped up the lust in me and Time purged it. I was dandled on Time’s knee and made to gurgle, then put to...