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By Benny Andersson, Tim Rice and Björn Ulvaeus.
Presented by The MLC Theatre Royal Company, Three Knights Ltd, The
Shubert Organisation and Robert Fox Ltd.
Staged at: Theatre Royal, Sydney.
Director: Jim Sharman. Designer: Brian Thomson.
With: Jodie Gillies, David McLeod, Robbie Krupski, Maria Mercedes and John Wood.
Dissatisfied with the versions of
Chess which have been staged in
I am pleased to report that there are few discrepancies between Sharman’s stated intention and the physical accomplishment of his objective. For his version of Chess is slick, lavish and, for the most part, engenders a resistless sense of exhilaration.
Chess, which had its world
premiere in
Unlike the
The story centres around two chess warriors, the American world champion
Freddie Trumper, and the Russian challenger Anatoly Sergievsky, who meet in
Although the story is set at a time when the Cold War is giving way to a political openness, the tournament soon becomes a battleground for rival East-West ideologies. (Despite some witty references to both glasnost and perestroika, in my view the Soviet delegates are portrayed as State-serving and emotionally robotic stereotypes.)
The tournament also serves as an amorous battlefield as
Ultimately, no one gets everything (or indeed anything) he or she wants – a sombre conclusion which situates Chess among the tougher post-war musicals.
For this production, Sharman – in collaboration with British lyricist Tim Rice – dropped some pieces of music and condensed the time-span and settings. While these structural changes have enhanced the musical’s continuity and sense of tabloid urgency (I saw the London version in 1986), I think that Sharman’s prime achievement is his culling of several magnificent performances from his extremely youthful cast.
Jodie Gillies, who plays
Robbie Krupski (who only made his theatrical debut in 1987) plays Anatoly, while Maria Mercedes plays Svetlana, his wife. Both of these performers are fine actors, and they extort from their vocal cords a rich spectrum of sound.
While David McLeod deftly animates Freddie’s gymnastic petulance, and Laurence Clifford’s Arbiter resounds with clinical indifference, I feel that both of these performers have rather limited vocal ranges.
My chief criticism of Chess concerns the score, which I don’t find as seductive or as consistently vivifying as, say, that of Les Misérables. The catchiest and best-known song in Chess is perhaps One Night In Bangkok, and the opening night rendition of this tune sounded tinselly and underpowered, and bore scant resemblance to the boppy, echoic number we heard on the radio some years ago.
During the show’s opening minutes, I feared that Brian Thomson’s teeming, high-tech set and its avalanche of special effects would overwhelm and devitalise the text and music. Fortunately, though, Thomson’s impressive and opulent designs are ultimately utilised in a more leavened fashion. Transcribed for ABBA World
Photo: Jodie Gillies and Robbie Krupski…a moment of passion.
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