Playwright Peter Shaffer (1926-2016) chased the same idea for 30 years. A mild-mannered, rule-bound protagonist meets a counterpart who is wild at heart. Our hero is at first repelled but soon becomes fascinated, envious, even obsessed. Theatergoers who remember Five Finger Exercise (1958), The Royal Hunt of the Sun (1964), Equus (1973), and Lettice and Lovage (1987) will recognize the theme. Virtue may be its own reward, but passion is the only sure road to transcendence. 

Amadeus, winner of the 1981 Tony Award for Best Play, is perhaps Shaffer’s clearest expression of this conceit. Set in 18th-century Vienna, the play concerns the relationship between staid court composer Antonio Salieri and brilliant vulgarian Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Convinced that “music is God’s art,” Salieri despairs to realize that his unworthy rival has been chosen as the Almighty’s vessel. (“Let your sound enter me! Let me be your voice!”) Thus dejected, Salieri sets out to destroy his adversary, aware all the while that Mozart has lived and worked in a higher register than Salieri will ever reach.