"Someone Else's Story"
"Someone Else's Story"
"Someone Else's Story"#1
Posted: 4/21/26 at 8:19pm
Just saw it Sunday. Loved it.
But can someone please explain to me why "Someone Else's Story" was given to Florence in this production (or any production, honestly)? I realize historically it has floated between Florence and Svetlana, but the lyrics don't make sense, coming from Florence, in Act II.
For example, the song starts out, "Long ago...," and she speaks about falling in love as a girl. So then she can't be talking about her relationship with Anatoly, which is said to be 4 years old right about the time Svetlana comes into the picture. The only way these lyrics would make sense for Florence would be if she was singing them in Act I, pondering breaking up with Freddie, not in Act II, thinking about leaving Anatoly.
I considered that maybe Florence was remembering her relationship to Freddie and simply making a comparison between that and her relationship to Anatoly, but no. She literally says the promises she made in this relationship she made years ago gave "grown impossible to keep," and then she asks, "Will he listen if I stay?," and "Will he miss me if I go?" I think it's pretty clear it is one continuous relationship she is talking about.
Anyone?
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/13/03
"Someone Else's Story"#2
Posted: 4/21/26 at 8:40pm
I'm an old die-hard fan of the score - I damn near memorized the concept album when it first came out - but it predates any inclusion of this still bafflingly generic ballad. The number's third reassignment and movement to the 11 o'clockish spot for Florence makes zero sense. It was Judy Kuhn's I Want in the first Broadway production, a point of access for the character to explain how she arrived at such emotional stasis. It slowed the show early on, with its reflective tone, but it was beautiful, and the great Kuhn made it memorable. After that, as noted, it went to Svetlana. I'm always suspicious of songs that anyone can sing, at any point in a piece of storytelling, and this one makes my point, persuasively. Did I say "generic"?
We now spend this entire show waiting for Florence to evolve away from a singular obsession with her romantic partners; it's the only thing she sings about for 2.5 hours, these two men and the woe they conjure. I longed for something new - repurposed with new lyrics? - that might launch Florence as a human being untethered to romantic entanglements as a defining trait. We didn't get it. So her final expression via this pretty song - after so many songs about these two men - as a stopping place feels unsatisfying. The character so needs - let's say it - to get a life beyond these two sequential triangles. The show's creatives, and that includes Strong, neglect her beyond serving Freddie and Anatoly. If the musical dared to propel Florence toward something we might feel resolution rather than a stop. It's too bad, because the show still knocks these ravishing songs through the Imperial's ceiling.
"Someone Else's Story"#3
Posted: 4/21/26 at 9:22pm
User6636a849 said: "Anyone?"
As introduced in the original Broadway production, "Someone Else's Story" made a lot of sense to me. Florence is regretting her relationship with Freddie and contemplating a better one with Anatoly. I regret that they've messed with it since then.
"Someone Else's Story"#4
Posted: 4/22/26 at 1:11am
Right, it's just another baffling choice in this production for me. My friend described it as "everyone needs to get an 11 o'clock number so this is Florence's" and that explanation makes about as much sense as anything else you could come up with for why it's the penultimate number of the show.
When given to Florence, it ABSOLUTELY needs to be in act 1 and be about Freddie. The original version had it come in the place of Nobody's Side (with Nobody's Side moved later), where she's just had an argument with Freddie and realizes she's at the end of the line with him and has to leave him. I personally think it would be best served in the Heaven Help My Heart slot, as she's going from one lover to another and reflecting on her past relationship (it doesn't hurt that I've always found Heaven Help My Heart a bit too cloying for Florence, but it was a #1 hit in the UK so what are you going to do?)
"Someone Else's Story"#5
Posted: 4/22/26 at 1:41am
Has she managed to find the emotion in the song yet!
"Someone Else's Story"#6
Posted: 4/22/26 at 10:31am
Tell me if I'm wrong but I get a sense that Chess is a convoluted mess of music, lyrics and book that it doesn't matter what re-incarnation if you examine closely enough you will find contradictions, challenges and inconsistencies but if you zoom out and consider 'the vibes' as a whole, the emotion associated with the music, some of the lyrics and the broad story telling etc.. it kind of works. Maybe I'm stupid, but I've seen the show multiple times (not the current production) and I still feel I barely get some of the details of the story sometimes. I've kind of given up trying to and don't think that is what the show is about......(so as far as the questions raised in this thread I guess they are good questions but maybe it shouldn't be examined so closely and you listen to the 'vibes' of Lea Michelle singing the song).
"Someone Else's Story"#7
Posted: 4/22/26 at 10:37am
I'm firmly in the camp that the original West End book of Chess was mostly there and just needed a few tweaks, and most attempts to wholesale overhaul it just make it worse. The story itself I find to be simple but it's the political atmosphere circling around them that make it more complex, which gives us richer characters (the current revival addressed that by having the narrator talk down to the audience but then made the characters laughably one dimensional). I think it's a piece that needs a director with a strong vision, which it doesn't seem like we've gotten. Oh what I'd give for a woman to direct/rewrite the book, because Florence really should be the main character...
"Someone Else's Story"#8
Posted: 4/22/26 at 3:59pm
Personally I liked its placement better in the first act (OBC). It's very anti-climatic in its present form. I've never liked Svetlana singing it. I forgot that it was in act 2 of the 1990 1st national tour (which is probably my favorite production out of all the iterations of Chess that I've seen).
"Someone Else's Story"#9
Posted: 4/22/26 at 6:17pm
DottieD'Luscia said: "Personally I liked its placement better in the first act (OBC). It's very anti-climatic in its present form. I've never liked Svetlana singing it. I forgot that it was in act 2 of the 1st national tour (which is probably my favorite production out of all the iterations of Chess that I've seen)."
I don't think I've encountered anyone who would disagree with this.
"Someone Else's Story"#10
Posted: 4/22/26 at 6:40pm
It works better when Svetlana sings the lyrics more specific to her that Tim wrote for her in Sydney in 1990.
Broadway Legend
joined: 5/1/05
Blocked: After Eight, suestorm, david_fick, emlodik, lovebwy, Dave28282, joevitus, BorisTomashevsky, Seb28
"Someone Else's Story"#11
Posted: 4/23/26 at 12:30am
There was never any chance that Lea was NOT going to get the big solo “finale” in Act II.
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