Amadeus

When I read the revision notes Amadeus, I was immediately struck by the fact that he worked the climactic sequence so many times. Previously, I had thought that out of any scene in your play, that would be the scene you would want to rework the least--if it's the culmination of your play, you would think it would be wonderful the way it was and not need reworking. However, when thinking it over and considering my own plans for revision as the time for Portfolios draws near, I find it quite makes sense to rework the ending/climactic scene so many times. I completely agree with him that endings are the most important(which is also why it's what i've mostly written in all of my pieces of plays) because I think that a great first step is to know where your going to end up, and then go back and decide how you're going to get there. I think that having the ending perfected allows you to finally establish the point of where you're getting to; and in my opinion there's nothing like endings that either leave you shocked or confused--I hate the cop-out endings that usually end with "And they all live happily ever after. What's most interesting to me about the revisions on Amadeus was how the rewriting of the ending, far from just changing the plot of the play(and often, it didn't change it much), the play actually was revised to allow showing of the villans--Salieri's-- humanity. To revise solely for that purpose, I think, shows wonderfully how you can take a play from just good to really great. I think, in his revisions, he unintentionally brings up a good point: you can't just see evil for evil. If you're going to have a play that connects characters to the audience--and with Amadeus I think this is especially important considering the time in which the play was taking place and the tendency for audiences to disconnect from such a "period piece"-- you can't just have the evil guy be evil, but you have to connect the evil to some fundamental part of humanity that makes the audience almost afraid to see that in themselves. The most bone chilling villans are those that simultaneously inspire sympathy and disgust.
Probably the most important thing I learned from these revisions is to make sure to connect each and every character to the audience--especially if you have a rather philosophical or antiquarian piece. The only way you're going to leave the audiences with that stunning ending is to both shove your point upon them and to not make things so cut and dry as simple good and evil.