Chess revival?- Page 2

[RippedMan]

Posted: 6/21/17 at 12:43am

I love Chess, but no matter what you do, it will be a hard sell. 

[Emmaloucbway]

Posted: 6/21/17 at 12:59am

I agree that Chess is a hard sell, but I'm thrilled that it might be getting a revival! I've been a big fan of the score (especially the original concept album and 2008 concert), and I would love to see it live on Broadway! 
I also wonder if Groban will be involved. He's mentioned in interviews that he had such a great time in Great Comet and would love to return to Broadway; plus this revival is aiming for fall 2018 (right?), over a year away.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 6/21/17 at 1:42pm

I think if you're a good person, and eat your vegetables, and every night you say a little prayer that there'll always be producers who are dumb enough to miss the fact that reviving mega-flops never results in a hit - maybe then you'll get your wish.

Tell that to producers of Follies, which keeps coming back for some weird reason. Nobody ever whines about another Follies production (unless it's to do with casting).  At least Chess was a hit in London and hasn't received multiple Broadway or West End revivals since.

Hopefully, the Royal Albert Hall concert provided some additional exposure and generated interest in the show itself.  

[RagzJr]

Posted: 6/21/17 at 2:20pm

I don't know , though.  Considering the new tensions and general intrigue surrounding the US/Russia relationship we're watching play out, there may be more interest now than we'd think.  Yes, it does need an overhaul (ditch the Broadway version completely and do something closer, in structure and story, to the more recent concert version) but there really is SOMETHING in there that can be Frankensteined into something pretty magical (if given the RIGHT people at the helm).

I have always loved the music and the story, and have always wished someone might somehow revisit it and find a way to truly make it work.  I pray to the gawds this comes closer...

[9Mirrors]

Posted: 6/21/17 at 2:40pm

I think there are benefits to looking at the Swedish production which was staged in 2002/3 and re-wrote most of the story and added a few new cracking songs and sifted out some of the less important that didn't move the story along. The Gothenburg revival from a few years back added more depth and looked stunning and dared to cut a couple more songs and add small extra bits to further develop the character of Freddie and move the story along. 

It didn't succeed in making any of the characters more likeable but did flesh them out and with added scripted sections all underscored you understood their motivation far better and the story moved better. 

Whilst the last UK touring musician version had its faults the attention to detail in developing the intense relationship between Florence, Freddie and Anatoly. 

 

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 6/21/17 at 4:15pm

The 2002 Swedish production is stunning.  I just hate that 2001 Danish recording (the first full English-language recording).  

[newintown]

Posted: 6/21/17 at 4:25pm

"Tell that to producers of Follies, which keeps coming back for some weird reason."

Except Follies was never a mega-flop, as Chess was.

[hork]

Posted: 6/21/17 at 5:22pm

CallMeAl2 said: 

There are only two problems: the book and the score. The book has been rewritten with every incarnation. But I don't think people realize that the score isn't good at all as a theater score. The musical scenes, such as they are, are awkward and stilted. The character songs don't arise out of circumstances - they seem to be pasted on. It plays almost like a jukebox musical that has the catalog of great songs that it has to work into a plot somehow.
 

As much as I love the show, I have to admit this is true. Of the female songs, anyway. It's rather telling that "Someone Else's Story" is interchangeably sung by Florence and Svetlana, depending on the production, and that "Heaven Help My Heart" is sometimes in Act 1 and sometimes in Act 2, thus changing the meaning of the song.

But I'd be all over any kind of revival of it. It's one of my favorite shows but I've only seen it performed twice, neither of them particularly good productions (one of them was in a small theater with just a piano and no "One Night in Bangkok," and the other was the East-West Players production with an Asian cast, which they did a decent job with but which was still pretty low-budget and amateurish).

The original concept album is brilliant, maybe the best cast recording ever produced. They just need to write a new book around it and add a few of the songs that weren't included on it (but certainly not all of them, and certainly not the long version of "The Deal" ). There's no reason it can't work, because the template is right there.

Updated On: 6/21/17 at 05:22 PM

[BroadwayNYC2]

Posted: 6/21/17 at 6:03pm

God, please make this happen

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 6/21/17 at 7:34pm

Except Follies was never a mega-flop, as Chess was.

Is that a technical term?  Follies flopped all three times on Broadway, which is kinda mega in its own right.  At any rate, the flopping of Chess, mega or otherwise, was the Broadway production, which was highly revised and completely restaged from the hit London production.

[Sally Durant Plummer]

Posted: 6/21/17 at 8:39pm

I love the score of Chess, but at least Follies has depth to the characters. Chess is just three people screaming interchangeable pop songs at one another (in Florence's case, songs that blatantly contradict each other - she's upset because she's fallen love with a man she doesn't know at all, then 20 minutes later she "knows him so well?". Richard Nelson's Broadway version remains my favorite of the many different copies of the script - but not even Nelson can make "Pity the Child" a sympathetic moment for a character so obtuse and annoying.

[10086Sundays]

Posted: 6/21/17 at 9:41pm

Sally Durant Plummer said: "Chess is just three people screaming interchangeable pop songs at one another "

LOL.  Maybe the best one line description of Chess ever.  And very accurate.  

I agree that one of the biggest issues is that I don't really care about any of the characters, in fact, once Florence and, especially, Anatoly decide to cheat on their significant others, there's no way to redeem them in my eyes.  Freddie is the only one I like, but he is written poorly in most versions.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 6/21/17 at 10:15pm

I love the score of Chess, but at least Follies has depth to the characters. 

The "depth" of the foursome (the other characters, not so much) doesn't make them any more likable. 

she's upset because she's fallen love with a man she doesn't know at all, then 20 minutes later she "knows him so well"?

Well, that's not what Heaven Help My Heart is really about (and most versions of the show put the song in Act 1, anyway).

I agree that one of the biggest issues is that I don't really care about any of the characters

See, that's exactly how I feel about Follies.  The characters are either pathetic or despicable.  

 

[Margo319]

Posted: 6/21/17 at 10:17pm

Small but devoted audience for this one.  I would see it, but yes, hard sell.  

[binau]

Posted: 6/21/17 at 10:36pm

Mister Matt said: "Except Follies was never a mega-flop, as Chess was.

Is that a technical term?  Follies flopped all three times on Broadway, which is kinda mega in its own right.  At any rate, the flopping of Chess, mega or otherwise, was the Broadway production, which was highly revised and completely restaged from the hit London production.

 

"

You're not wrong but the FOLLIES producers of the most recent revival had some reason to believe they had a hit on their hand - a sold out run in Washington and an acclaimed cast (including Broadway's biggest star, Bernadette Peters) turning out Tony-worthy performances. Up until Jake in Sunday the show had the highest grossing week of any Sondheim show on Broadway ever, and paid back a sizable proportion of its investment having some very strong weeks and almost never dipping below the weekly nut. 

If they revive Chess with some of the strategy above, such as with Idina Menzel and Josh Groban, there is good reason it might succeed. But reviving it for the sake of reviving it without any clear plan or reason to succeed like they had for FOLLIES would seem very risky to me. 

Updated On: 6/21/17 at 10:36 PM

[Sally Durant Plummer]

Posted: 6/21/17 at 11:24pm

The "depth" of the foursome (the other characters, not so much) doesn't make them any more likable. 

Maybe not to you, but at least the read as genuine humans. Besides, unlikable characters (with depth) are the source of some of the greatest psychological dramas written: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Long Day's Journey Into Night, A Streetcar Named Desire, A View From the Bridge, Three Sisters, and even Tolstoy's brilliant novel Anna Karenina. Besides, just because you don' care about the characters doesn't mean that others don't. There's a reason for the success of the plays I've mentioned above - and also for the numerous revivals of Follies. There's something delicate and brilliant there - the thinning of the line between characters and humans. That's just not the case in Chess.

There's no doubt that Frank Rich was correct when he wrote this: "Their tale of international intrigue, with its nefarious spies and headline-making defection, is incoherent and jerry-built, John le Carre boiled down to a sketchy paragraph. Even more ridiculous (and windier) is the parallel love story - which sends Florence, a Hungarian refugee to the United States, ricocheting arbitrarily between the American and the Soviet players as if she had no self-respect or political convictions. By the time the love triangle turns into a rectangle, with the sudden addition of Anatoly's estranged but impossibly noble wife (Marcia Mitzman), ''Chess'' starts to resemble Chinese checkers."

Well, that's not what Heaven Help My Heart is really about (and most versions of the show put the song in Act 1, anyway).

No disrespect to you (honestly), but it's not "In Buddy's Eyes" or "Pink", which are about things that are sometimes misconstrued (twice have I been astounded when I overheard complaints that a six minute song was written about the color pink). It's a pop song shoved into a musical, with the same generic didactic statements that could easily be sung by anyone - and this is coming who loves the OBCR. There's not much beyond the fact that she fears she loves him too much and he's a stranger (and he's going to know more about her soon).

I will say, I hope they make it one chess match in the revival. Why do we care when a year has passed between the two acts - and why is Freddie still there (having already sung his screeching anthem)? Such are the questions one asked when a pop album makes the transition to stage (with the possible exception of "Evita", and even then only in the hands of a brilliant director such as Hal Prince and a definitive performance such as Patti LuPone, a point the recent revival made incredibly clear).

[rosscoe(au)]

Posted: 6/21/17 at 11:24pm

No one wants to see that Idina woman scream her way through this.

[RippedMan]

Posted: 6/21/17 at 11:33pm

Please just not Constantine for "Pity the Child." Please no. There are other rock/belters out there. 

[Robbie2]

Posted: 6/21/17 at 11:40pm

rosscoe(au) said: "No one wants to see that Idina woman scream her way through this.

 

"

true not again

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 6/22/17 at 8:59am

There's a reason for the success of the plays I've mentioned above - and also for the numerous revivals of Follies. There's something delicate and brilliant there - the thinning of the line between characters and humans. That's just not the case in Chess.

The plays were far more complex and well-written than either Chess or Follies.  The "thinnig of the line" you find delicate and brilliant, I find choppy, dull and meandering.  And that's just the foursome.  The parade of hoary punchlines from the peripheral characters is groan-inducing.

No disrespect to you (honestly), but it's not "In Buddy's Eyes" or "Pink"

Oh, for crap's sake.  "Well, it's no _______" is just a pretentious retort.  No, Chess is neither of those shows and it wasn't supposed to be.

There's not much beyond the fact that she fears she loves him too much and he's a stranger (and he's going to know more about her soon).

You claim it's so simple, but that's still not what the song is about.

 

No one wants to see that Idina woman scream her way through this.

Yeah.  Nobody likes her.  How do you even know her name? It's a good thing she's never performed the role.

 

[newintown]

Posted: 6/22/17 at 9:33am

"Follies flopped all three times on Broadway, which is kinda mega in its own right."

I should probably define terms, you're right. Mega-flop, to me, means a show that closes fast (Chess ran for two months; Follies for a year and two months), and was also poorly received by critics. Follies, as we all know, is generally extremely highly regarded. Frank Rich has called it "brilliant." About Chess, Rich said:

"For over three hours, the characters onstage at the Imperial yell at one another to rock music. The show is a suite of temper tantrums, all amplified to a piercing pitch that would not be out of place in a musical about one of chess's somewhat noisier fellow sports, like stock-car racing."

"If contentiousness were drama, ''Chess'' would be at least as riveting as ''The Bickersons.'' That the evening has the theatrical consistency of quicksand - and the drab color scheme to match - can be attributed to the fact that the show's book, by the American playwright Richard Nelson, and lyrics, by Andrew Lloyd Webber's former and cleverest collaborator, Tim Rice, are about nothing except the authors' own pompous pretensions."

"Their tale of international intrigue, with its nefarious spies and headline-making defection, is incoherent and jerry-built, John le Carre boiled down to a sketchy paragraph. Even more ridiculous (and windier) is the parallel love story - which sends Florence, a Hungarian refugee to the United States, ricocheting arbitrarily between the American and the Soviet players as if she had no self-respect or political convictions. By the time the love triangle turns into a rectangle, with the sudden addition of Anatoly's estranged but impossibly noble wife, ''Chess'' starts to resemble Chinese checkers."

"But the musical's moral stance proves hypocritical minutes later, when, for no reasons other than to plug a catchy song (''One Night in Bangkok'' and give the production its one iota of dancing, ''Chess'' takes us on an exploitative tour of Bangkok's sleazy flesh palaces."

"The studied ideological neutrality of the script is matched by the music - composed in a sometimes tuneful but always characterless smorgasbord of mainstream pop styles by Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus of the Swedish rock combine Abba."

 

Now, I never thought of Rich as infallible, but I agreed with every word he wrote about Chess, an idiotic, brain-dead, tissue-thin diaper load of sentimental clichés, with the social-political sophistication of an unusually simple-minded 11-year-old, clumsily cobbled together merely to support a portfolio of pleasant yet utterly empty-headed, folk-song-simplistic pop songs. Enjoy it if you like, but the show is,at best, a guilty pleasure, not an underappreciated masterpiece.

Updated On: 6/22/17 at 09:33 AM

[LYLS3637]

Posted: 6/22/17 at 10:35am

rosscoe(au) said: "No one wants to see that Idina woman scream her way through this."

 

I do!!

 

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 6/22/17 at 11:09am

Now, I never thought of Rich as infallible, but I agreed with every word he wrote about Chess

I don't agree with every word (the comments about "yelling" and "piercing pitch" sound like grumpy old get-off-my-lawn man), but I wasn't a fan of the Broadway production in structure or design.  And I never liked One Night in Bangkok in the show.  It doesn't work and never has.  

I've never said Chess was a masterpiece, but it does contain one of my all-time favorite scores.  A guilty pleasure?  I feel no guilt about enjoying it.  Thin book with sappy cliched characters?  Welcome to the first semester of History of Musical Theatre.  I'm okay with that.  Empty-headed, folk-song-simplistic pop songs?  Mostly disagree.

I get that I'm supposed to think Follies is "brilliant" because the academics say so, but I never have and I doubt I ever will (especially the awful book).  I think there is some brilliance in the score (even in the songs I don't like), but academic brilliance doesn't always lead to enjoyment, especially when you're burned out on the only songs you like because they have been performed ad nauseum at every Sondheim-themed event and by every Sondheim fan at any given opportunity.  If I never hear "I'm Still Here" again before I die, I'll be grateful.

[Owen22]

Posted: 6/22/17 at 4:03pm

"If they revive Chess with some of the strategy above, such as with Idina Menzel and Josh Groban, there is good reason it might succeed. "

 

NO NO NO NO NO to Idina Menzel. She was HEINOUS in the concert version.

 

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 6/22/17 at 5:35pm