Chess - a review by Gayle Wade
A Cold War clash of cultures between the USA and the USSR is played out on the chequered chess board - with an unhappy love story thrown into the bargain. Chess masters from the two super powers meet for an international championship match, and end up competing for the love of one woman.
Chess is more like a modern opera than a musical, with very little exposition - the story is told through the songs. Much is made of the fact that the music was written by Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus, but it couldn’t be more unlike the simple melodies of Abba songs. No-one is going to be going home humming snatches from this score. Even though the lyrics, by Tim Rice, are in English, I could have done with surtitles at some points, especially when the chorus or several of the principles were singing together.
There were some very fine voices among an excellent cast. Charlotte Couture as Florence dominated the stage in her solo numbers. Both Christopher Longman as Anatoly and Chris Starkey as Molokov have wonderfully resonant and expressive voices, and first-rate acting skills. Mark Kerr as the Arbiter is a supple and skilful dancer with a powerful singing voice and great stage presence. Wendy Mercer made a late entry as Svetlana, Anatoly’s abandoned wife, singing poignantly about the lost love of her younger days. She and Charlotte Couture harmonised beautifully in the only well known song from the show, I Know Him So Well.
Sterling work came from the chorus; their ensemble singing was powerful and effective. They capably depicted a range of character roles, from Italian peasants to journalists, cheerleaders or sluts in a Bangkok nightclub.
The men’s chorus provided priceless comic interludes, with an extremely camp set of consular officials dealing with the Russian player’s application for asylum (“Who do these foreign chappies think they are?”) and a delightful Russian dance from members of the chess champion’s entourage.
As a spectator sport, chess is about as exciting as watching paint dry. Swelling song and spectacular dance were used to make the matches more exciting; exquisite ballerinas dressed in black or white re-enacted the struggles on the chess board - and gave away the result in advance as one colour or the other was flung to the ground.
The small orchestra deserves special praise, coping exceptionally well with this complex and demanding score.
It is hard to make out the moral of the story, if there is one. The Americans and Russians are equally ruthless and deceitful, so it is hard to care who wins the title of champion. Unsurprisingly, the woman in the love triangle gets dumped by her married lover, who returns to his wife and the country he had fled.
Perhaps the message is that the unvarying rules of the chessboard are preferable to the uncertainties and pains of real life.
