Micky Jo (Theatre Critic and Content Creator) (8:24)
While it's hard. So the time has come for me to tell you about the changes made to Chess for this Broadway revival. And there are specific things as well as big picture things. There is a significant change to the entire idea of the plot and what the show inherently is, as well as a change to the framing device by creating one, which is that the story is now narrated by the Arbiter. And here's the Arbiter as you. You will not recognize him. The first time I saw Chess, the Arbiter was a shirtless man wearing a long leather trench coat with a sort of fade from black to white Mohawk, playing a trumpet in between his songs. Somehow less camp than the Arbiter, Bryce Pinkham is now playing on Broadway, who, in between trying to explain the events of the plot, discredits it entirely by informing the audience very early on. You're going to think that most of this is ludicrous, but trust me when I tell you some of this stuff actually happened, because it does bear the faintest resemblance to some Cold War events. What feels a little less than true, and don't worry, we're going to come back to the Arbiter because there's so much to talk about is the fact that the show has gone from being an allegory about the Cold War via this tense chess match to a story about the Cold War happening because of this chess match or developing because of this chess match or resting on the fate of this ridiculous chess match. And there's such a difference. There is the world of difference between a show that is telling us that these chess matches were taking place during the Cold War and that informed everything that was surrounding them. So they were very Consequential. So they were very closely watched. So they were manipulated because everything was PR and everything was propaganda and everything was the height of competition between these two feuding states versus the New Broadway revival, which tries to convince the audience that the actual events of the Cold War were decided by the winners of this particular chess game, with representatives from both nations trying to sway the outcome. Because if the Russian wins, for example, their nuclear weapons are going to be launched in the direction of the US guaranteeing, as was the thing at the time, an inevitable nuclear winter and the death of civilization and humanity on the planet as we know it because of the whole mutually assured destruction thing. New Broadway chess would have us believe that that big red button was going to get pushed if the Russian man, who had since defected to the uk, didn't agree to lose the chess game. And to my mind, that evidence is two things. One is a fundamental misunderstanding of the nuance of this material and the subtlety of this material, and that the chess game is meant to be representative and not connected to the events that are happening at the same time. And also an inherent mistrust of the material. You can hear this in Bryce Pinkham's undermining dialogue as they try desperately to throw bad pantomime jokes at it. Just lazy, topical political gags that swipe at either side of the political spectrum just to try and make somebody throughout the theatre laugh in the hopes that, you know, anyone's going to enjoy that one. Here's a Biden joke for the orchestra. If you didn't like the Reagan one I five minutes ago, it's just so clear to me between its two outings on Broadway that they just don't trust the story of chess. And I think that's a real shame. And while I won't necessarily disagree that the original, staged in 2025, isn't quite watertight, the alternative that has been produced at the Imperial is just so much worse. The Arbiter tells the audience early on, you're going to think this is ludicrous. And so, unsurprisingly, we do. If you give everyone the permission not to take this seriously and suggest it even then, that's exactly what's going to happen. Now. The show also has some light structural reworking. We open with the song that's like, these are very dangerous and difficult times. Just in case anyone feared that subtlety might be a feature of this production before the Arbiter arrives to explain the two act fever dream that people have paid good money for with a fourth wall breaking metatheatrical narration that features such winning lines as, he's just sad because he's the only cast member who doesn't have a song, and I'm about to now, and I'm gonna kill it. At the start of the performance, I wasn't taking notes. I actually reached into my bag about 15 minutes in and retrieved my notebook. Because I thought, no, no, this. This dialogue needs to be written down. People need to know that these lines were actually said on a Broadway stage. Whereupon I wrote down the lines. Deep down, we are all kgb, even if we are not. And the unironically delivered. How's my favorite KGB chess coach guy? That's a line that the American representative, the Walter de Courcy character, now says to the Russian to Molokov. Difference in their relationship being that the two of them are on the same side. Well, they're on entirely different sides, but they want the same outcome from these chess games. Throughout the show, he is trying to persuade Aaron Tveit's Freddy Trumper to throw the match. He is trying to deceive him into doing it, even because it would be better for all involved if the USSR were to be victorious on this particular occasion. And at the risk of igniting a political debate in the comments, which couldn't be more painful than withstanding the show itself, but which I would like to avoid nonetheless, some early narration suggests to us that this is a stando between communism and, if you're waiting for me to say capitalism, that's what I was waiting to hear. No, no, Democracy. Communism and democracy, which I will tentatively point out, aren't diametrically opposed political ideologies and also are not inherently mutually exclusive. But that does feel like the single most American way to frame the political battle that's taking place in the background of chess or in this production in the foreground of chess, because, like I told you, it's all about these chess games. Games. Oh, also, Murano is back. This is an establishing song when we go to Murano, Italy, in order to go and play a little bit of chess. Of course, the establishing song for the chess game in the second act is the much more well known and much more enjoyable One Night in Bangkok. And, you know, I was initially charmed that Murano was back in. It's been in exactly half of the versions of chess that I have seen. It goes in and out, in and out, like. Well, like Anatoly presumably did before Florence sang Heaven Help My Heart. Unfortunately, this version of Murano, which has always been deeply twee and just a little south of a Gilbert and Sullivan number. It's entirely unironic and just so long. Around this time, I simply wrote down this book, C s with three U's in a row, and observed that the narration, which I keep circling back to because it was just so upsetting, had a habit of saying the quiet part out loud, as the expression goes, and just literally delivering the subtext of the moment rather than allowing anything to be implied or suggested. There is, by the grace of God, a change that they've made to the material, which I think actually helps it, which is to establish a past between Florence and Anatoly. You've heard of One Night in Bangkok. They, it is established, have previously shared One Night in Stockholm, which is a fun little Easter egg because, you know, Sweden. We've not talked much about the character of Freddy Tremper, whose surname is mined for yet another winning political joke. And the temperament and mania that he has is really dialed up and talked about more explicitly in this production. Florence is trying to get him to take his pills. Walter de Courcy tries to get her to take them away during the first chess game. They taunt him with flashing lights and confusing tactics, which they almost always have. But there is often a ulterior motive on Freddie's part, where he causes a scene and steps away from the game in order to renegotiate his salary. That was not an aspect of this one. And unbelievably, as painful as all of the political conversations are, and the lines like, you've got CIA written on your forehead, the emotional declarations of these characters are actually far, far worse. And it isn't only the arbiter who spe speaks to the audience. We hear the inner monologues of these characters so that we have the real benefit of hearing Anatoly say, he doesn't deserve Florence. I love her, but I don't know how to show it. We have Anatoly's initial complex emotional position of I hate chess. I want to die. Though, perhaps confusingly, moments later, he does add, I am a chess machine. I only live to win. There is plenty more to say about this production and its creative choices, but before then, I have a feeling that you're intrigued about these performances. Let's talk about this cast.
