For those who feel that life is not fair — and who doesn’t these days? — the Maltz Jupiter Theatre has got a play for you.

It is Peter Shaffer’s “Amadeus,” the 1979 conjectural drama that swept the theater awards in London and a year later in New York, arguably one of the handful of great pieces of theater of the past half-century. While the Maltz turns what was originally an operatic production on a grand scale into more of a chamber work, that does not diminish the play’s considerable ingenuity or impact.

Amadeus is, of course, the middle name of Wolfgang Mozart, the 18th century musical child prodigy. Yet Shaffer makes him a secondary character to court composer Antonio Salieri, a deeply sour man with a craving for sweets, a mediocre melodist favored by the Austrian emperor yet cursed with the knowledge that his reputation will fade away as impoverished Mozart’s will soar. As Salieri puts it in one of his many acrid bon mots, he is condemned to “being called distinguished by people incapable of distinguishing.”

Shaffer was inspired to write “Amadeus” by a rumor of the day that the envious Salieri caused Mozart’s early death as age 35. On the evening of his own death, Salieri confesses his sins to the audience as the play flashes back to his first encounter with the snotty, scatological genius. By the end of the first act, as he views a Mozart composition sheet, so erasure-free that it must be divinely inspired, Salieri declares war on God by vowing to destroy Mozart’s life and livelihood.

So “Amadeus” is a memory play of a demented man and director Michael Gieleta represents that mental instability with an off-kilter opera house set (by Philip Witcomb), a murky stage (lit by Keith Parham) and cinematic projections by Andrzej Goulding which often suggest the demons haunting Salieri.

As Salieri, Tom Bloom certainly has the acting chops to dominate the evening, but Gieleta seems to be restraining him, curtailing some of the character’s emotional extremes to even out the match between Salieri and his perceived rival. Consequently, it is young Ryan Garbayo as a petulant Mozart who commands our attention, with a frisky, foppish first act contrasting with his darkly moody final days in the second act.

Gieleta has pared away some of the silent roles and all of the Viennese citizens-as-atmosphere, in keeping with his chamber concept. Nevertheless, the cast still numbers 14, with standout support from Michael Brian Dunn as the blithely clueless emperor and Alexis Bronkovic as Mozart’s wife Constanze, who walks out on him when his fortunes begin to plummet.

“Amadeus” has plenty to say about the nature of art, the fickle public reaction to it, the quality of genius and the essence of inspiration. But Shaffer never lets these notions get in the way of a good comic punch line. Alternately funny and harrowing, the production is a promising start to the Maltz Jupiter’s 10th anniversary season.