ABBA - CHESS MUSICAL - Jim Colyer

CHESS - Opening As the 1980's dawned, ABBA showed signs of becoming political. Politics seeped into the conversation in Our Last Summer and into their consciousness in The Day Before You Came. The Piper hinted at the way the masses may blindly follow a leader. In The Visitors, the police are coming to arrest a woman whose home has been a meeting place for a political organization. ABBA was vocal about injustice in Poland in the early 80's, and their records were banned in the USSR. There is nuclear war in Soldiers, "that dreadful rumble, all that thunder and the blinding light." Their interest in politics came to a head in the Chess musical. Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus teamed up with Tim Rice. Benny and Bjorn composed the music, and Rice penned the lyrics with Bjorn's help. Rice acquired his political savy while doing the lyrics for Evita. Chess is reminiscent of Evita in that all the dialogue is contained within musical numbers. The entire show is sung. Tim Rice helped Benny and Bjorn with the larger framework. They were accustomed to 3 and 4 minute songs. It is different to think in terms of two hours of music centered around a plot and a cast of characters. A production of Chess presents a very different soundscape from an ABBA concert. It is more linear. Each song must be linked melodically and lyrically to the one before and after it. Tim Rice is a master of irony. Evita dies at her zenith, and both romantic and married love fail in Chess. The only thing that bothers me with Rice is his neglecting to include the Resurrection as part of Jesus Christ, Superstar. Is Chess not a love story? It is in that the Russian and Florence have a year-long affair. Ultimately, its authors are saying love suffers at the expense of political interest and competitiveness in sports and games. Selfhood dominates in the pursuit of fame. Chess is a story of ambition, though not in a MacBethian sense. It is based on the Fischer/Spassky chess matches of 1972. Two warriers vie for the chess crown. That a serious drama can be enacted without bloodshed is an anomaly attributable to the Swedes. Chess divides into 3 parts. There is the competition between the two chess players, the broad struggle between east and west and the conflict between lovers and would-be lovers. Four characters are important. They are the American and his assistant, Florence, and the Russian and his wife, Svetlana. Two couples, like ABBA! Florence falls in love with the Russian who defects to be with her. The American gets revenge when he flies Svetlana to Bangkok. Svetlana spoils her husband's fling. Chess is introspective, brooding. The characters are forever second guessing themselves. Suspicion is cast upon the American's sexuality, and Florence's past is muddied by her misconception that her father was a hero in the Hungarian uprising. Chess was a hit in London's west end between 1986 and 1989. It came to Broadway in the spring of 1988. Reviews were terrible, and it closed quickly. It got a second chance on the road, touring 21 American cities. Audience response was excellent. I saw it at The Kentucky Performing Arts Center in Louisville, March 7, 1990. Background With the collapse of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, the American-led Allies poured into Germany from the west. The Russians poured in from the east. The armies met, victorious and exuberant. It did not last. Human nature being what it is, we tend to manufacture enemies when there are none. Winston Churchill envisioned an iron curtain splitting the continent. The United States and The Soviet Union squared off, Democracy versus Communism in a so-called Cold War. The Russians put up the Berlin Wall. John Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev went eyeball to eyeball to eyeball over Cuba. The space race took Americans to the moon. Bobby Fischer challenged Russia's domination of chess. The 1980s saw a resurgence of Cold War policy under Ronald Reagan. It was in this context that the Chess musical was conceived. Eventually, The Soviet Union overspent and broke up. The Russian army pulled out of eastern Europe. The two Germanies became one. Cooperation between Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin made the rivalries of Chess difficult to understand. CHESS - A Summary The World Chess Championship is being held in Merano, Italy. We get the picture. The Alps. Clean water and air. An ideal setting. Still, the city fathers' chief interest is money. The hotels will be full and the economy bolstered. The American champion appears. He is happy about the media attention. He is cynical, too. He knows they are interested in the money and the east/west angle, not the game of chess. From his room, the Russian challenger watches the American on TV. He and his second, Molokov, discuss whether the champion is competent. The Russian is striving to be his own man. Molokov reins him in. Alone, the Russian confesses to himself that the dream and the reality are two different things. The matches get underway. The arbiter is strict. He is determined that past infractions will not reoccur. He knows that lurking beneath the veneer of diplomacy is the hostility of Soviet/U.S. relations. The inevitable commercialism is there. Any public event is turned into a marketplace. Toothpaste, vests and chess sets are sold. When the American walks out, Florence finds it hard to defend him. She assails him. He reminds her of the Hungarian uprising and of her childhood. He is obsessed with politics. Her loyalty wavers. The game resumes. The American is in over his head. There is going to be a new champion. Florence meets the Russian. It is here she changes sides. Call it love at first sight. She and the Russian leave Merano together. The Russian defects. He hated Communism anyway and the way the party curbed ambition. Time passes. The Russian is to play yet another Russian in Bangkok. But the American has been busy, too. He has been to Moscow, plotted with the Russian's wife, Svetlana, and his ex-countrymen. Drawn to Bangkok, the American prowls the streets unmoved by this city of sin. Once again, Florence can not compete with chess. Hell breaks loose when she sees the Russian's wife on television, also in Bangkok. The American confronts his old foe. He will spare Florence the truth about her father for a price. The Russian hates him for going behind his back. When Florence spurns him again, the American regresses to childhood memories. He sees himself as a martyr, a vicitim. He blames everyone but himslef. Psychiatry replaces politics. His kings, knights and pawns kept him sane. As the new combatants hover over their chessboard, Molokov expresses satisfaction with his new boss. The American assures him the expatriate will lose one way or another. The Russian retains his title. In doing so, he rejects both love and wife. Svetlana accuses him of being abnormal, of craving a false adulation. He believes she never understood him. Only when it is too late does he feel the anguish of losing Florence. A history of chess follows. It is seen as a game of mistakes, originating from the murder of a brother by a brother. How can its exponents be anything but losers? Song sequence on the London album ..1 MERANO- Sets the scene and introduces the American. Rodgers and Hammerstein did the music for "The King And I" which was also set in Bangkok. SRO means "standing room only." ..2 THE RUSSIAN AND MOLOKOV/WHERE I WANT TO BE - The Russian is neither satisfied with his backers nor his personal life. He is ripe for a change. Molokov is his assistant. ..3 OPENING CEREMONEY (THE ARBITER) - The referee of the matches asserts his authority. There are 64 squares on a chessboard, 8x8. ..4 QUARTET (A MODEL OF DECORUM AND TRANQUILLITY) - After the American walks out, the others decry the current state of affairs. The quartet is composed of the Russion, Molokov, Florence and the arbiter. ..5 THE AMERICAN AND FLORENCE/NOBODY'S SIDE - Florence has lost confidence in the American. Elaine Paige is Florence. ..6 CHESS - The game breaks up. ..7 MOUNTAIN DUET - Florence and the Russian find they have something in common. Romance blooms. ..8 FLORENCE QUITS - Florence and the American accuse one another. ..9 EMBASSY LAMENT - The Russian defects. The attitude of the civil servants is understandable in light of the way the media exploited this kind of thing. With the downfall of Communism, passage from east to west is not so sensational. Comic relief. 10 ANTHEM - The Russian proclaims his freedom. There is no patriotism in him. His self is his country. He feels contempt for his wife, his colleagues, everyone in Russia. His pledge of allegiance is to his own desires. 11 BANGKOK/ONE NIGHT IN BANGKOK - The American resists the temptations of Asian night life, preferring his intellectual sport. The chess board doubles as a dance floor. The board with the stray square represents the defecting Russian. Siam is the old name for Thailand. Yul Brenner became identified with his role as the King of Siam in The King And I. The Tyrol is a province in The Alps. The Tirolean spa is Merano. Hastings is on the southern coast of England. The Battle of Hastings was the first Norman victory in England. British author Somerset Maugham travelled in and wrote of his countrymen in the Far East. He wrote "Of Human Bondage." Buddha lived in the 6th century, B.C. A reclining Buddha is just that, a statue lying on its side. 12 HEAVEN HELP MY HEART - Florence knows the Russian will tire of her. 13 ARGUMENT - Florence and the Russian get into it when Svetlana shows up. 14 I KNOW HIM SO WELL - A duet between Florence and Svetlana about the man they love. Barbara Dickson is Svetlana. The mistress sees he needs security. The wife fears he needs freedom. 15 THE DEAL (NO DEAL) - The American threatens to expose Florence's father as a traitor unless the Russian throws the match. The Russian refuses to sell out. 16 PITY THE CHILD - The American recalls his childhood in a burst of self-pity. He is remorseful about his lost relationship with his mother. Harold C Schonberg's book, "Grandmasters Of Chess," contains biography of Bobby Fischer and a description of his erratic temperament at the 1972 Reykjavik matches. Tim Rice made his Russian a composite character but his American is a carbon copy of Fischer, down to the broken home, his propensity for living out of hotel rooms and his obsession with the Russians. Consider that of 13 world chess champions, Fischer is the olny American to hold the title. When Murry Head sings, "I took the road of least resistence," we feel the passion of a man scrambling for his life, desperate to survive. The guitar has ABBA written all over it. Wellander has a tension in his lead that is very distinctive. 17 ENDGAME - The Russian beats his new challenger. His goal is achieved even if his personal life is in shambles. Any game of chess consists of 3 parts: opening, middlegame and endgame. 18 EPILOGUE: YOU AND I/THE STORY OF CHESS - Florence and the Russian realize it is over. The choir recounts the history of chess. Chess functions as a metaphor. Romantically and politically speaking, life is a chess game. Rice is the one with the enthusiasm for the game, not Benny and Bjorn. He started with an outline in 1977. We sense in Rice a need to downplay his subject, half apologizing for imposing a musical about chess on a public which associates the game with an ivory tower intellectualism. Endgame There is a video show accompanying the album called Chess Moves. Tim Rice explained the significance of the 5 clips. We see smoky lighting and detached characters. Included are One Night In Bangkok, Nobody's Side, The Arbiter, I Know Him So Well and Pity The Child. At the end of Chess Moves, the American raises the white king above his head as the black player resigns. Black and white are the traditional colors of both chessmen and squares. They players are also known as black and white. White enjoys an advantage because it always moves first. In a series of games, the players alternately play each color. A game lasts between 40 and 50 moves. Any blockbuster show will spawn a second effort telling how it was made. Chess has its documentary, called The Making Of Chess. It traces the recording of the album in 1984. We achieve some intimacy with its participants, a sense of running back and forth between Stockholm and London. We share Anders Eljas' (yah) pride in being able to work with The London Symphony Orchestra. When Tommy Korberg, as the Russian, hits the final note of Anthem, we feel his satisfaction. I did some research on the game itself. The game of chess strips society to its fundamentals. The pieces are a cross section of medieval society. The king and queen rule. Bishops are the Church. Knights are the military. Rooks are the castle. Pawns are peasants. The Chess musical does the same thing at the personal level. It defines the elements of human nature. Ambition and raw emotion are compressed. Success becomes everything, and we are shown its rewards and its price. The players were given names on Broadway. The American became Freddie Trumper. The Russian became Anatoly Sergievsky. Broadway let the American win, presaging Ronald Reagan's victory over The Soviets in The Cold War. As the musical moved across the world, it took on the nature of a chess game, yielding to any number of variations. Each country or production shuffled song sequence and altered plot and characters to suit itself. Chess ran for 6 months in Sydney. One critic called Chess the worst musical in history. I disagree although it is certainly in a class by itself. Chess reflects the thinking of the 1970s even though it was written and performed in the 1980s. It was an unpatriotic show trying to succeed in a patriotic decade. In those terms, we can understand its limited success. Chess questioned authority in an era when people raised flags, not questions.
Contact: jim@jimcolyer.com