As I left Chess, the latest mega-attempt (of many) to translate the 1984 Benny Andersson/Tim Rice/Björn Ulvaeus concept album to the legit stage, I couldn’t help thinking how little interested in chess this Chess is. Only two competition sequences, and not even seated, as the grandmasters stand at microphones muttering “Pawn to E6,” “Knight to F3” like contestants on the old $64,000 Question. There’s an occasional allusion to the effect of “the KGB makes its next move: the King’s Gambit,” or “the only move to make is a sacrifice.” Yet the incredible physical and intellectual rigors of chess at championship level are much talked about, but never appear, on the stage of the Imperial.
Which begs a question. If all you’re shooting for is the tired old metaphor that life is a game and the game is life, you might as well call your show Yahtzee! or Old Maid (no reflection on how Lea Michele’s character of Florence, the “genius strategist,” is criminally underused as a pawn of male players). Actually, Chutes’n’Ladders might suit this version best, what with the cast gamely trudging up and down David Rockwell’s American Bandstand set, while the characters’ fortunes rise and fall with librettist Danny Strong and director Michael Mayer pulling their strings.
Strong has heady fish to fry. Billing the ceremonies as “A Cold War Musical,” he goes through hoops to insinuate post-1945 geopolitics into the thin romantic storyline of two world champs and the second they both covet. The chorus is dressed in identical gray flannel suits (which must make life hell for the wardrobe staff); except for the act two opening, when they strip to their underwear for “One Night in Bangkok,” they perform Lorin Latarro’s uncharacteristic jerky-puppet choreography or stare from the sidelines, because that’s all the Cold War amounted to, you see, mindless apparatchiks doing their mechanical thing.
[Read Melissa Rose Bernardo’s ★★★★☆ review here.]
The main plotters are KGB handler Molokov, essayed in requisite Count Dracula fashion by Bradley Dean, going up against comedy-relief dolt U.S. rep Walter (Sean Allan Krill). We are to believe that the decisions of nations teetered on chess matches these operatives contrived to rig. Sure they did. In act one, a surprise victory serves to demolish the Salt II treaty (p.s., Carter and Brezhnev actually did sign it). In act two, the “Able Archer” NATO field exercises of 1983 are an occasion for chess to tempt or avert nuclear holocaust. Sure.
Whether appropriating and distorting these real-life crises is a harmless plot gambit or evidence of stupendous bad taste, I leave to you, but I know where I stand. In any case, the script gives itself an out by having the brash narrator (Bryce Pinkham of A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder) announce up front that things “might seem a bit ludicrous” yet “some of this crazy shit actually happened.” Meaning: what difference does it make? Whatever impact a scene or song might achieve, Pinkham’s “Arbiter” regularly stomps on it in gratuitous comment (“My god, that was hot”) or an RFK Jr. or Biden joke, and chronicles the proceedings in the hysterical high tenor of a QVC pitchman announcing unprecedented cubic zirconia discounts: “All these questions and more will be answered in the dramatic climax of our most entertaining Cold War musical!” If you say so.
But, you ask, what of our big draws – Michele, Aaron Tveit and Nicholas Christopher, glowering portentously from the poster and Playbill cover? Well, they are fine. They put over the beloved classics – “Heaven Help My Heart,” “Anthem,” “Pity the Child,” “I Know Him So Well” – with minimal melisma and maximal emotional connection, even if the lyrics don’t always make sense when they can be understood. (How did “Someone Else’s Story” end up as Florence’s 11:00 number? Beats me.)
Tveit (Moulin Rouge!) seems to be coasting a bit, not completely committed to the Bobby Fischer-inspired Freddie’s bipolar swings – just a little too composed; but Michele (Glee; Funny Girl), looking terrific, tears into her impossible role of ping-ponging (another game!) between the two champions as if it made sense. Christopher (Hamilton) comes off best, his impassive Yul Brynner affect hinting at Anatoly’s deeper layers that emerge when forced to choose among three loves: Florence, wife Svetlana (a heartfelt Hannah Cruz) and Mother Russia.
Loud and colorful enough, under Kevin Adams’ rock-concert kaleidoscopes of light, to elicit all the expected whoops and cheers, the spectacle wears out its welcome long before the end of a near-three-hour running time. Meanwhile, the promise of an effective staged Chess – if indeed it’s a promise and not a chimera – remains stubbornly out of reach.
Chess opened November 16, 2025 at the Imperial Theatre. Tickets and information: chessbroadway.com
