ALL THE WRONG MOVES

The musical Chess highlights the tongue-twisting, swift, and pithy lyrics by Tim Rice and the soaring, dazzling music by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus of ABBA fame. In previous Stage and Cinema reviews of productions at MTG  and the Met Theatre, its history has been well-documented: The super-partnership of Rice-Andersson-Ulvaeus in 1979; the worldwide success of Chess’ 1984 concept album; its shaky 1986 mounting in London, and a bungled 1989 Broadway production. Since then it has lived in a bubble of enormous potential, but has yet to burst forth as a great musical in spite of numerous tweaks and reworked books (even Tim Rice, who supervised the version at Albert Hall in 2008, saw that it  was best done as a concert). The reason why the show is so often produced resides with the score, one of the best ever written for a recording studio.

For the time being, the key to making this work exciting and affecting in a staged performance is to showcase the score and curb the complicating and confusing story elements. East West Players tackles Chess with the still bizarre and befuddling original UK book (with additional material from the Broadway and the Rice concert versions), but this production suffers from much more than an oddly constructed libretto (which, it seems, cannot be avoided). This checkered outing includes the following: Miscast actors who were clearly utilized for purposes of multiculturalism, not because they are right for the roles (one of the reasons for the mediocre performances); director Tim Dang’s atrocious staging; and a band overwhelmed by the complex, shape-shifting music. I can only wonder what sort of involvement and thought process Dang had to take a flawed ruby and deliver rubbish instead of refinement.

The metaphor of chess itself – war, strategy, etc. – is woven through a tale involving politics, romance, and matters of personal honor. The story takes place in the later years of the US / USSR cold war conflict and centers the action on the World Chess Championship showdown between two brilliant players: Freddie, a brash, upstart American who is the current World Champion, and Anatoly, a cool, collected Soviet challenger. Both their fates are transformed not by country or by game, but by Florence, Freddie’s manager, lover, and second. In an attempt to sort out some tempers at a match in Merano, Italy, Florence starts to fall in love with Anatoly. Love triangles and political intrigue emerge and surprising personal truths are revealed as another match is played in Bangkok in the equally clunky second act. However, nothing is clunkier than the manner in which it is presented at the David Henry Hwang Theatre.

To start, the mismatched performers, who have little to no chemistry. Elijah Rock has the incredible vocal range, control, and power necessary to knock Anatoly’s challenging songs out of the theater. Not so with his range as an actor: He’s supposed to be the romantic hero we’re rooting for, and instead we are subjected to a wooden performance where beautiful ballads and impassioned anthems are reduced to nothing more than mere exercises of vocal prowess. Whereas Rock has the voice coupled with blank interpretation, Victor E. Chan, as Freddie, overcompensates for his rival’s stale nature by over-gesticulating and overwrought vaudevillian emphasizing, and his vocal range, while  impressive, is  not altogether consistent. Joan Almedilla sings quite well as Florence and does the best she can to make the scenes work with the extreme performances of her co-actors. Carey Rebecca Brown comes as a breath of fresh air in the underwritten role of Anatoly’s wife, Svetlana, and beautifully sings and interprets “Heaven Help My Heart.”

Ray A. Rochelle plays Molokov – Anatoly’s second and KGB agent – like Boris Badenov of Rocky and Bullwinkle fare, which he performs quite well, but it doesn’t translate effectively in this musical – he seems more comical than threatening. His baritone is impressive, and he comes close to stealing the show during “The Soviet Machine,” wherein he unleashes a series of balletic turns in stunning fashion (Rochelle’s thick Russian accent also calls into question why Rock’s Anatoly has none). Ryan Castellino plays the Arbiter – a referee and president of the International Chess Federation – with plenty of proper ham and cheese; while his voice is capable of hitting all the notes, his range is chopped between his chest voice and a distinctly nasal and helium-filled head voice; it is jarring to hear him go in and out in the middle of phrases.

Dang’s vision of Chess introduces a character dubbed “The Spirit of Chess” (Jasmine Ejan) who dances around during the prologue and various chess matches. This creation neither illuminates the story nor makes it more coherent. On top of that, Marc Oka’s choreography lacked the fluidity one would expect from a spirit of any sort.

Music Director Marc Macalintal’s performers are overwhelmed by the demanding score, in which time changes and tonal shifts are frequent and unrelenting. The trimmed-down band of six struggles to keep up but too often falls behind. Complicating matters is Yoshi Irie’s tepid and irregular sound design – absolutely unforgivable for a piece with a bombastic and explosive score fueled by powerhouse voices and dynamite music. The chorus is both game and vocally strong, but melody lines and lyrics, while better understood than most productions of Chess, are often lost. The male ensemble really showed off the show’s potential with a rousing and riotous “Embassy Lament.”

Anthony Tran’s mismatched costumes are positively indescribable in that dark Tim Burton / 1980s thrift store kind of way. Add to that Adam Flemming’s set and Dan Weingarten’s lights, and it looks like we’re in a seedy multi-level Bangkok gay bar from the start of Act One. The trappings are sufficient only for “One Night in Bangkok,” when the stage comes alive with scantily-clad dancing boys in tight gold lamé shorts and dominatrices in hats that were stolen from an organ grinder’s monkey. While the rest of Act Two can be forgiven the dark and dingy atmosphere of that disreputable city – it makes no sense why Merano, Italy looks the same but feels like a soviet-themed bar and lounge.

Flemming’s projection design  is infuriating, with looped videos and a “LIVE TV feed” video camera stationed upstage left, leaving  the characters to talk towards the camera and into the wings. Why are they looking there instead of out into the audience? And why is the blurry screen stationed at the top of the stage on stage left? Our eyes are forced to bounce back and forth unnaturally. As bad as this was, the worst staging had to be the final match; it took place stage right on a platform between the top of the scaffolding and the stage itself, while the spirit of chess was free to dance all around center stage. Even with all  of the  volume, one audience member seated to my left fell asleep; a few others left at intermission, no doubt due to the poor management of all these elements. I suspect that the only people who would  sit through this ordeal are those who take pleasure  in watching  American Idol auditions.

Chess is ultimately a musical about the value of our choices; the chess pieces of our life that we think are vital to success can quickly fly off the board in one swift move. It’s about adapting and making the moves necessary to go forward and make it in life. Some are by necessity, some are foolish, some require sacrifice, and hopefully we end up with the results we want in the end. The dream is that we can rise victorious from the incongruous belief systems we are born into. That’s why people see the potential of this musical as one which is both transformative and exceptional (and that is also why this burnt-out critic keeps returning to the theater after so much dreck — every show is a potential for transformation). Unfortunately at East West Players, Tim Dang makes all the wrong moves and puts both his performers and the audience in an undeserved checkmate.

photos by Michael Lamont

Chess
East West Players
David Henry Hwang Theater at the Union Center of the Arts
scheduled to end on June 23, 2013
for tickets, call 213.625.7000 or visit http://www.EastWestPlayers.org