Chess

Chess was a popular pop / rock concept album, penned by Tim Rice, with Benny and Bjorn of Abba fame, which many of us loved (and probably knew by heart) prior to it becoming a stage musical. Based on Cold War diplomacy as played out across two consecutive World Chess Championships in cities on two continents, there’s a love triangle (albeit with a second act fourth corner) thrown in for good measure. It has a to-die-for score, though its stage career has been a checkered one, through various incarnations and re-writes. Despite a three-year West End run, a revised version of Chess flopped on Broadway, and in an age of professional revivals, it only ever seems to emerge on main stages in concert versions.

It’s tough to assemble seven principal performers equal to the task of singing this score, but Manly Musical Society is blessed with a cast equipped to handle the rock vocal demands.

Director Ryan Fogwell has chosen extremely stark minimalist production values; the set is mostly just an elevated black platform with stairs toward the rear of the stage, with occasional use of props.  

I’m love minimalism in community theatre, yet in a production where video has been specifically created and used successfully on one occasion, multi-media might have been expanded to effect elsewhere, if only to clarify locations, timeline and such, in what is often a very sketchy script, or possibly add to the sense of commercialism and media circus implicit in the piece, yet not explored to their fullest in this production.

Some scenes, the ‘Mountain Duet’ (isn’t it actually a trio) for instance, felt in need of both stronger definition of location, and tauter, clearer direction, despite being well sung.

Kiera Connelly sings and acts Florence with assurance and attitude; Michael Paton brings more than a little of the bad boy, reminiscent of a young John McEnroe, to American chess champ Freddie; Tavis Cunningham is appropriately intense as Russian chess champ Anatoly, doing full vocal justice to showstopper ‘Anthem’; Carl Olsen seems ideal casting for Soviet operative Molokov, as intimidating as a big Russian bear; Stephanie Edmonds gets minimal stage time as Anatoly’s wife Svetlana, but nails her second act vocal opportunities impressively; Ben Greenwood’s Arbiter lands the official, sometimes officious, authority of the role, while Sam Ardasinki finds an apt suave sleaziness as the slick commercial operator Walter De Courcey.

The enthusiastic ensemble relish their opportunities to be folky and operetta-ish, devious soviets, a media scrum and Bangkok’s nightlife, though I did wonder about some choreographic and directorial decisions in ensemble scenes which detracted by pulling focus or seemed irrelevant to the moment. Ensemble entries, too, sometimes needed either quicker cueing from the conductor, or more action in the instrumental introductions, to avoid a somewhat stop-start feel in places. Perhaps its part of the nature of the show, where consecutive musical numbers with very little dialogue or recitative between, occasionally make it feel more like a series of big rock songs in a concert than a musical.

The sound balance between orchestra and singers was excellent, with just a few teething problems early where stronger voices were noticeably over-amplified amidst the full company. Anthony Cutrupi and his orchestra generally do a very good job, though there are moments where these theatre orchestrations seem to lack the punch of the super-familiar rock sounds of the concept album.

More than many shows, Chess, with an almost iconic pop hit score, but a sketchy script, needs inventive artistic vision and far more detailed directorial input to fill in the gaps if it is ever to surpass our loungeroom theatre-of-the-mind versions, listening to the original recording.

Neil Litchfield