CHICAGO — It might seem to be about two 18th century Vienna composers, but Peter Shaffer’s masterful 1979 play “Amadeus,” which opened Sunday night at the Steppenwolf Theatre, is really a play about the late-in-life problem of how to deal with the pesky emergence of those younger and more talented than you.

You might be writing music at the court of Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, or you might play for the Chicago Bears or work in private equity. It doesn’t matter. As you age, you’ll see youthful geniuses arrive to threaten your position.

You’ll see their inevitable early crudeness and lack of sophistication. But — here is the paradox on which Shaffer homed in, nearly 50 years ago now — if you are good at what you do, especially if you are very good at what you do, you also will immediately recognize their talent, even if others do not. How you respond, as a generous mentor or as a jealous rival, is likely to define the rest of your life.

Being generous, of course, is the only acceptable public position, especially in these days of Facebook virtue signaling. But Shaffer knew, and made clear in a play that in 1984 was turned into a massively successful movie, that it is just not that simple. Jealousy might be a deadly sin, but that doesn’t mean you have to fold your tent; mediocrity is not a death sentence. Although if you choose to fight, know that the young always win in the end.

I’d say that Robert Falls, who ran the Goodman Theatre inestimably well for more than 35 years, has a good sense by now of the issues of this play. (Falls returned to Chicago theater to direct this play in place of Anna D. Shapiro, who left for health reasons but is now doing better.) Certainly, his lively in-the-round production reflects that sophistication of thematic understanding as one watches Antonio Salieri (Ian Barford), a mediocre court composer smart enough to know his own mediocrity, take down the rising Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (David Darrow, in a fantastic Steppenwolf debut).

Shaffer’s play casts Salieri as a sophisticated murderer (or maybe manslaughter is more accurate), impeding Mozart’s progress through the court’s hierarchy at every turn, making sure he is starved of reputation, resources and opportunity, even of love and companionship. But as in Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” every slash and burn he lands on Mozart’s manuscripts and psyches extracts a price from Salieri himself, eventually turning him into a twisted, self-destructive corpse of a man.

“Amadeus” is an excellent play, of course, although it is one very much of its time when it comes to the treatment of women. It is of a piece, in some ways, with “Dangerous Liaisons,” another famous play/movie, this one written six years later by Christopher Hampton but also dealing with malevolent male destruction. In “Amadeus,” the two women who surround Mozart and Salieri, Constanze (Jaye Ladymore) and Katherina (Erica Stephan) largely are passive victims of the fight between these two men. It’s a dated formulation, frankly (although both of these actresses are excellent in the show), and I had a moment Sunday night thinking about all that Steppenwolf had to say about these programming issues around the pandemic and now here we are with them producing “Amadeus.” The pendulum most certainly has swung back, its trajectory surely aided by the need to find a title that sells tickets, as this one likely will.

I’m not 100% clear where Shapiro’s work ended and Falls’ began on this production, but the result of the combination is a lively cast and a more slick and sophisticated spatial use of the new Ensemble Theatre than we hitherto have seen. For the first time in this space, it feels like here is a show (with a shrewd set from Todd Rosenthal) that sits naturally in the round, that makes clever and often humorous use of the implicit intimacy and that makes good use of a fundamental appeal of plays like this one: namely, the rather delicious experience of always knowing more than the characters. After all, the name Mozart has (to say the least) eclipsed Salieri and so when one of the snotty courtiers (a snarky group that includes Robert Breuler, Yasen Peyankov, John Lister and Joey Slotnick) disses “The Magic Flute” or “The Marriage of Figaro,” or the superficial ruler (Gregory Linington) makes some dumb snap judgement, we feel superior. Although many don’t realize it, audiences love to feel superior and reward shows accordingly at the box office.

There are real rewards to be had in Darrow’s superb performance as Mozart, which is outré enough to fit the hip style of this production, period attire from designer Amanda Gladu notwithstanding, but is sufficiently grounded in reality that it conveys, well, I guess the right phrase is prodigious pain. I have great respect for Barford as an deeply honest actor and he certainly has his moments, but the missing dimension, at least in terms of what is visible, in his performance here is that sense of how Salieri is like a train barreling to self-destruction without a driver, of being full aware of the immortality of what he is doing while also being unable to stop himself, especially as his diabolism increases along with Mozart’s accomplishments.

To my mind, he needs more drive, sharper edges and a deeper connection with an audience of confidantes. Ideally, you sympathize with Salieri, a tragic figure, just until you see that his ruin could be yours, too.

Review: “Amadeus” (3 stars)

When: Through Jan. 25, 2026

Where: Steppenwolf’s Ensemble Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted St.

Running time: 2 hours, 35 minutes

Tickets: $20-$123.50 at 312-335-1650 and steppenwolf.org

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