Watching a game of chess play out isn’t exactly the most exciting way to spend a night out — let alone playing one. Learning which piece is which and how they move across the board is already a chore that few have the patience to sit through. But on Broadway, the latest revival of “Chess” is the most exhilarating match you’ll ever watch, despite its many hiccups.
“Chess” has always been a bit of a discombobulated mess, and this production is no different. The musical, which began as a concept album and was first staged on the West End in 1986, centers on a chess championship match between an American and Soviet at the height of the Cold War. It’s a simple enough premise, but the details quickly sink the show into incoherence.
The CIA and the KGB work together to stop the American player, Freddie (Aaron Tveit), from defeating his Soviet challenger Anatoly (Nicholas Christopher) as part of a truce to prevent nuclear escalation. There’s also a love triangle between Freddie, Anatoly and Hungarian refugee Florence (Lea Michele), which never fully resolves itself. Oh, and they also sing a song about being in Bangkok, because the second act, naturally, takes place in Thailand.
Makes sense, right? It never has. Since its inception, “Chess” has been known for its nonsensical storylines. No one has been able to fully fix the book of “Chess,” but almost any changes would be a marked improvement. So it’s truly remarkable that Danny Strong, who wrote a new book for the Michael Mayer-directed revival, managed to make the script even worse than it was before.
The most egregious of Strong’s tweaks is the transformation of the character known as The Arbiter (Bryce Pinkham), promoting him from a side character to an omnipresent, self-aware narrator who frequently breaks the fourth wall. Instead of alleviating confusion, The Arbiter’s modern references — including, but not limited to, jokes about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s brainworm and Joe Biden’s delayed departure from the 2024 election — give audience members whiplash as they are relentlessly jostled between time periods.
As such, this production of “Chess” contains a strange dissonance between the story’s Cold War setting and the modern sensibilities of its narrator. Lorin Latarro’s choreography heightens that tension, with twerking that probably belongs on TikTok, not the stage. And just like how chess players might try to throw off their opponents, the oversized 16-person ensemble clutters the stage in an attempt to distract the audience from the narrative weakness of Strong’s book.
The book of “Chess” may still be waiting for its fairytale ending, but the hit score — with music by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus of ABBA and lyrics by Tim Rice — has never sounded better. Brian Usifer’s orchestrations are captivating from the first note of the overture, and it’s no surprise that the three leads’ vocals are superb. Tveit’s performance as the self-absorbed chess champion is just as impressive, while Christopher suffers from a distractingly inconsistent Russian accent and Michele suffers from chronic overacting.
As a show that is more often performed in concert than as a full-scale musical, the set and lighting design embrace a less-is-more approach. It’s not particularly inspiring, but it does the job — the enlarged chess pieces sitting beside nuclear bombs up the wings of the stage are an especially nice touch. Several screens also adorn the stage, with live news clip projections serving as a brilliant storytelling device. But the repeated use of visuals that contain red Soviet hammers and blue U.S. stars is both lazy and too on the nose.
Almost every element of “Chess” is slightly askew, but they all have potential for greatness. During the 10-minute song “Endgame” at the show’s heart-racing climax, everything on stage suddenly begins operating at peak performance. A square lighting rig descends to create a chessboard on the stage, the electric guitar squeals defiantly and nuclear bomb trajectories light up the screens as the cast counts down the seconds until launch — the result is one of the most epic musical numbers to hit a Broadway stage.
“Chess” is a musical that’s been backed into a corner with almost no moves left to save itself, destined to forever be a superb score in search of a brilliant book to match it. This revival has all the tools to finally turn the tide, but falls victim to indecision instead. This time around, Mayer and the rest of his creative team tried to make a musical that took itself seriously while also being full of self-deprecating jokes. “Chess” can be a satire or a drama, but it can’t be both. After all, each game can’t have two winners — and this one ends in a stalemate.
Contact Chantal Mann at [email protected].