The Weekend Australian · Saturday, 3-4 February 1990 (Page 22)

Adaptability the name of the game in Chess. By Fiona Kennedy

As the Berlin Wall tumbled and East and West danced together for joy, British lyricist Tim Rice and Australian director Jim Sharman might have winced.

For just as they were planning to open in Australia with what they hoped would be a definitive version of the stage musical Chess, one of the linchpins of its plot – the Cold War – seemed to have entered a final stage of meltdown.

Already reworked after three successful years in London and 10 disastrous weeks in New York, the rock opera underwent another metamorphosis that recognised shifts in international relations and produced the version that opens at Sydney’s Theatre Royal tonight.

“It’s the one musical that deals with the present. Most musicals tend to deal with a slightly more nostalgic world,” Sharman said yesterday.

Chess plays out the conflict between an American world champion chess player and his Soviet challenger.

Their contest is portrayed as both a manifestation of United States-Soviet Union rivalry and a modern version of chess’s folkloric origins.

Legend has it that one of two Indian prince brothers killed the other and then used a board model – the first chess game – to explain the death to his grieving mother.

Rice is said to have been dissatisfied with the London and New York versions. But after siding with the all-Australian team of Sharman, cast, crew and orchestra and outlaying $3 million he is confident of a show that will fulfil his original design. Transcribed for ABBA World

Photo: The all-Australian cast of Chess rehearse their moves.

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