From the very beginning, “Chess” has suffered more than its share of growing pains. Always an ambitious enterprise, Tim Rice conceived it as a rock musical (initially a concept album) exploring East/West relations though the prism of an international chess tournament between a tortured Russian and a narcissistic American. The legendary director Michael Bennett had to withdraw before rehearsals began due to his failing health. This forced replacement director Trevor Nunn to take the reins of another’s vision, resulting in a compromised 1986 world premiere on the West End. Nunn fared even worse with the American premiere in 1988, featuring an unsuccessful new book by playwright Richard Nelson. When the Berlin wall fell the following year, important plot issues became seriously dated. With the possible exception of Stephen Sondheim’s and George Furth’s’s “Merrily we Roll Along,” no musical has gone through as many versions, stages of development and different narrative approaches as the beleaguered “Chess.” But like Merrily, the magnificent score has always served as the most compelling reason to keep trying to find a way to make “Chess” work. After a concert staging at the Kennedy Center in 2018, the current version opened Sunday night on Broadway. Despite both being housed at the Imperial Theatre, the old and the new Broadway versions could not be less alike. It’s particularly satisfying when a dogged tenacity produces such a worthwhile result.
The Broadway revival of “Chess” is a glorious musical event. Director Michael Mayer gives the orchestra an ever-present placement in his production and hats in the air to the musicians! From the composers (members of the rock group ABBA) to the orchestrators (Anders Eljas and Brian Usifer) to the players themselves (under the exceptional baton of Ian Weinberger). Hearing the score of “Chess” sung by a first-class cast is as rewarding an experience as one can find on Broadway today. But “Chess” has sounded wonderful before. The real surprise of this version is Danny Strong’s new book. Unlike so many writers before him, Strong has a unique point of view with this material and a sense of wit that leavens the innate pathos of the story. He accepts the challenges that the fall of communism thrust upon the dramaturgy and meets them head-on. Rather than hope no one notices how dated the original conceit has become, he moves the action back several years and utilizes a Brechtian approach emphasizing the political ramifications over the romance. He also makes exceptional use of the chess Arbiter as narrator (a terrific Bryce Pinkham, showing colors he’s never been allowed to display before). These deeply intelligent choices give the entire narrative a propulsive quality and the stakes it has been missing for decades. We can only hope this is not Mr. Strong’s last foray into writing musicals; when it comes to librettos, we are desperate for his brand of risk-taking.
Michael Mayer’s production is extremely successful (with two important caveats, but more on those later). He has guided Aaron Tveit to his most compelling performance in years, avoiding almost all the pitfalls inherent in American Chess player Freddie Trumper (Strong hilariously warns us not to draw any inferences from the character’s last name- it was first written in 1984, after all). Tveit calibrates each scene with a fierce intelligence climaxing with “Pity the Child”, a soliloquy that stops the show. Nicholas Christopher’s Anatoly Sergievsky doesn’t quite find the same sense of obligation that the late David Carroll embodied in 1988. But he gives the Russian a deep melancholy that works beautifully and his rangy vocals are magnificent. The supporting cast is sharp, with Sean Alan Krill and Bradley Dean facing off as formidable CIA and KGB operatives, respectively. These adversaries ratchet up the show’s political tension with each exchange they share. Hannah Cruz benefits from the one new song in this version, effectively introducing the forlorn Svetlana – she’s a vocalist one hopes to hear more from. It is also worth noting the entire “Chess” ensemble; all specific, focused and exceptional.
Mayer has directed Strong’s book scenes with a keen eye and has made so many potent choices that it’s frustrating to see him falter in two such vital decisions; The first is his choice of Lorin Latarro as choreographer. Ms. Latarro has some success with her staging of a pair of act two highlights, “One Night in Bangkok” and “The Soviet Machine.” But the choreographic vocabulary she has created for virtually all of act one is bizarre, awkward and does little to illuminate the narrative at hand. The ensemble gamely executes her moves, but she fails to contribute to the sense of Greek chorus Mayer is going for. His other serious misstep is in his choice of leading lady. Lea Michele is not an untalented performer. But she is very much a performer, and this role requires a gifted actress (particularly in Strong’s rewrite). Michele is the eighth woman I’ve seen take on the role of Florence Vassey, so I have a myriad of memories associated with the character (Elaine Paige’s forcefulness, Judy Kuhn’s vulnerability, Carolee Carmello’s sheer passion, Julia Murney’s ice queen, Karen Olivo’s comic brio, Lena Hall’s go-for-broke gutsiness). Idina Menzel in the ’08 London concert staging was probably the most successful take on Florence I’ve seen, finding the balance between her independence and her desire to be loved (and she was born to sing this score). But Michele is sadly out of her depth here. She sings adequately, but there’s no edge to her voice. It doesn’t cost her anything to play this character. Her acting choices are generic and lacking in anything resembling wit. Her connection to her castmates often feels vague, like she’s not entirely present. She is also a victim of Strong’s one narrative misstep in the final scene (it’s too big a spoiler to reveal). Michele isn’t capable of pulling off the acting challenges this regrettable ending forces upon her character. One suspects she was cast primarily to stimulate the box office in the way she did the revival of Funny Girl (there are a lot of Glee fans out there). The rest of the production is too strong for her to hobble it, but it’s hard not to wonder what (or who) might’ve happened had the commerce not outweighed the art.
In the end, there is far more to celebrate here than to regret. The score of “Chess” is a rare example of just how powerful rock music can be in the theatre when it is not interpolated as part of a jukebox musical. Finding a rock catalogue audiences enjoy and forcing those generic lyrics into the mouths of characters never meant to sing them is the laziest form of musical theatre there is. But when someone as gifted as Tim Rice is allowed to write specifically for his delicately crafted characters? When those incisive lyrics are then set to such potent, enthralling music framed by the acuity of Strong’s book and allowed to breathe through Mayer’s forthright staging? The result is a must-see Broadway revival that will have audiences cheering well before the final curtain. Checkmate!
