And in the end I could have played it differently...

[bcholmes]

I went to see Chess tonight, with ldot (who hasn't updated that journal for years). I am very, very fond of Chess, loving it since my days in high school.

Chess is a story about the cold war playing out in international chess tournaments. Unfortunately, shortly after it came out, the cold war was changing dramatically, what with Glasnost and all that, and it quickly felt a bit dated. I saw a production of it in Sydney, Oz, in 1990 -- the story had been retooled to seem more up-to-date, but that version of the story lost some of its edge, I felt.

This production (currently playing at the Princess of Wales Theater) was much closer to the original storyline. The first act takes place in 1979, and the cold war is in full force.

There was a lot to like about this production, but to be honest, I wanted to like it more than I actually did.

The original story takes place around two chess championship tournaments -- the first in Merano, Italy, and the second a year later in Bangkok, Thailand. This production was consistent with that structure. The Australian production that I saw "simplified" the story, making it a single tournament in Bangkok.

So: the first act is in Merano. To some extent, it feels like the game is set in a fetish club in Merano, because other than the principle characters -- Freddie (the American), Florence (Freddie's second), Anatoly (the Russian), Molokov (Anatoly's second), the Arbiter, and Walter (the TV commentator) -- all other actors are dressed up as human chess pieces. The kind of chess pieces that might appear in a Tim Burton-themed BDSM party. Seriously, the knights were practically pony boys.

However, they cut the song, "Merano" (I've always loved the line, "Right now we're Italian,/we used to be German,/the border's been shifting around"). The production started, instead, with "The Story of Chess" which set the style that much of the show would follow: the music would play, and the chess pieces would strike interesting poses. They also all had musical instruments, which lead me to wonder, at times, if they were actually playing on stage. I was pretty sure that the Arbiter (who had a trumpet) was not, but I was never sure about the others.

After the opening number, we had a few scenes with Freddie and Florence, establishing their relationships. Mostly, the music, here, was completely unfamiliar to me. They lifted a bit of Merano -- the part that has Freddie singing "What a scene, what a sight, what a great sensation..."

Florence also had a solo, here -- a tune that Svetlana reprises in the second act as a fuller song called "Someone Else's Story". Again, it was music that I was unfamiliar with.

We didn't get back on recognizable ground until "Molokov and Anatoly" and "Who Needs a Dream".

Then finally we were beginning the tournament. This scene opens with "Difficult and Dangerous Times" (a.k.a. "U.S. versus U.S.S.R."), which was relatively well-done. And that's followed by the Arbiter's song ("The Arbiter"). Um. I hated the Arbiter. I kind of feel like he was the weakest singer who still had major singing parts. He didn't project, he didn't enunciate, and his performance was uninspired. Which was a pity, given that the Arbiter in the Australian production (Laurence Clifford) was one of the strongest performers in the show. In this production, the Arbiter spends the show wandering around with platinum highlights in his hair, a long leather jacket, and no shirt. I think he got the job because he has a washboard stomach -- I'm skeptical that it was because of his talent. The character is pretty flamboyant for 1979 -- but it give a bit more meaning to the line, "I don't like women; I don't take dough." Notably, the Merchaniser's Song ("we are here to tell you were are here to sell you chess!") was cut.

The story calls for Freddie to walk out of the chess tournament early in the competition, so that the two sides have to try to negotiate. This production made that moment very stylized, with Freddie sweeping the chess pieces off of the board and walking out. We don't really see anything that sets him off. I think that this is consistently how this production lets me down -- it's trying to stylistically and visually convey a beat in the story rather than just have dialog, or actual story telling. The storytelling suffers, in my opinion. The Australian production had this great scene involving Anatoly being served yogourt in a ostentatious golden cup during one fo the games, and Freddie makes a big scene suggesting that his people were sending him coded messages based on the flavour of the yogourt. In protest, Freddie storms out. In this version, we don't see why he storms out. We're told that he storms out. Tell, not show. Hurm.

The "Quartet" was mostly well-performed. One of the notable lyric changes involved this bit:

Anatoly: Through the elegant yelling/of this compelling dispute/comes the ghastly suspicion/my opposition's a fruit
Florence: I don't suppose/you understand the strain/of getting where he's got/for then you'd simply/call him highly-strung and not imply/he's one of those

That original lyric kinda has its finger on how people talked about queer folk in 1979. But it's a bit too uncomfortable for 2011. So instead of Anatoly suggesting that Freddie's a fruit, he instead suggests that Freddie's a nut. Hurm.

The "Quartet" is followed by a strange number called "Molokov and Florence" -- the piece doesn't work for me because it seems to just continue the same argument that they'd been having earlier. It feels to me like it makes this part of the story drag a bit. In truth, the point of the song is to dwell on and elaborate Florence's backstory -- about growing up in Hungary, and the disappearance of her father (story points that become important later) -- but at the time it's happening, it just feels like more of the same.

And then we're into Florence's fight with Freddie ("Florence and Freddie" and "Nobody's on Nobody's Side"), followed by "The Mountain Duet". I had two quibbles about this part of the story. First, at this point, I was getting frustrated by how ineffectually they were conveying the geographic setting. At this point, we're supposed to be in a hotel on a mountaintop, but nothing about the set really changed. It felt pretty weak. Again, I was reminded about how effectively the Australian production situated this scene. The original lyrics imply that Freddie storms out of the hotel before the Russian delegation show up; in this production, he doesn't bother to show up, which forces a number of lyrics to change.

When Freddie finally arrives, and finds Anatoly and Florence making googly-eyes at each other, he doesn't immediately fly into a rage (in particular, this is where "Florence Quits" seems to fit). Instead he's mostly wordlessly annoyed, returns to the game and loses several games in a row (again, not effectively staged -- instead the Arbiter just kinda tells us that it happens). It's only after those games that Florence and Freddie confront each other in Freddie's room and they sing "Florence Quits." In the original recording, "Florence Quits" ends with a Freddie solo, introducing the tune that he'll reprise as "Pity the Child" in the second act. In this production, they stuck "Pity the Child" immediately after "Florence Quits" and use the much shorter piece in the second act.

The first act finishes up with "The Embassy Lament", "Heaven Help my Heart" (another transplant from the second act) and finishes with "Anthem". ("My land's only borders lie around my heart") The actor playing Anatoly is (I think) the best singer of the bunch and possibly the best all-around actor. He nails that end-of-first-act finale.

The second act is a mess, in my opinion. It starts with a great opening number ("One night in Bangkok") -- possibly the most interestingly choreographed piece, and one of the few times that the "chess pieces" get to mix up their costumes. Obviously, it's all cultural appropriation all the time in this piece. The almost-all white actors are dressed in Hollywood-esque Thai costumes. Bad politics, but theatrical. (Because the Australian production was all set in Bangkok, most of the bit part players were Asian -- in this production, I think there was at most one Asian player).

I think the biggest mistake was omitting "Argument" -- it would have provided better grounding for the break-down of Anatoly's and Florence's relationship. I think they could have amped up the emotional stakes by introducing Svetlana earlier in the act. They had the TV interview between Freddie and Anatoly -- bring out Svetlana then. There was a lot of stuff going on in the second act, and it's mostly narrated. We're meant to understand that Anatoly's personal life is in free fall, but we don't really feel it.

Finally, I think they really blew the staging for "Endgame". The song, as written, has Anatoly singing about "they don't think they see a man who doesn't know which move to make, which way to go", and mid-way through the song he wins the tournament ("listen to them shout/they saw you do it/in their mind's no doubt/that you've been through it/suffered for your art, but in the end a winner"). Without really changing the lyrics, the production played that entire number as showing more and more emotional weight being piled on Anatoly. It's all sung as a downer. And then, once the song is done, he walks back to the chess board, makes a final move and the Arbiter explains that he just won the game and retain the title of champion. It's just anti-climatic.

Okay, maybe I'm being too nice. The second act blows. Sorry to say it, but it does.

It finishes with "You and I" (actually, this is a reprise -- there was another version of "You and I" at the top of the act, showing their lovey-dovey relationship. The reprise has the original lyrics -- "And we go on pretending/stories like ours have happy endings") And it finally ends with a reprise of "Anthem" sung by Florence.

So, hm. I was glad to see another production of Chess. I nonetheless wish it was a bit better than it was. It still had things going for it. The second act needs some love, but the first act mostly held up nicely.

Comments

[trouble]

Don, Ginny & I went to see that before "Fall Co-Curricular Week." I described it as Chess: The Manpain afterwards. I mean, I enjoyed it in the sense that it was a really fun night out with people I really like, and I was happy to go to the musical, but... yeah. The second act was really sad.

[submarine_bells]

Thanks for the detailed review. I found it really interesting. I've also been a huge fan of Chess (or at least, the soundtrack) for many years, and know it pretty much word-for-word; so I found your detailed breakdown of the performance very interesting.

I've only ever seen it performed once, and that was by a bunch of local drama students a long time ago. I admit that I didn't have very high expectations when I attended, but was very pleasantly surprised - they did a great job of it. It's long enough ago that I don't recall specific details; but IIRC, the general style of the performance was more naturalistic, less stylised, that what you describe here.

I gather from the Wikipedia article on Chess that live performances of it have a bit of an, um, chequered history; that being said, I'm glad to hear that it's still being performed, however dodgily.