After breaking with composer Andrew Lloyd Weber, lyricist Tim Rice collaborated in 1984 with the two former ABBA stars, Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson, to produce what became ‘the most successful “Swedish” musical ever written’ – Chess The Musical.
A concept musical about the chess match between world champions Victor Korchnoi and Bobby Fisher at the height of the Cold War, the work is refreshing for its novelty. However, the book is convoluted, at times ridiculous, and hopelessly over-developed, involving a love triangle, intrigues, political machinations and attempts to make statements about the Cold War.
The show survives on its musical hits, such as the party number One Night in Bangkok and the ballad I know him so well, forcefully rendered by dynamic female lead Gina Schmukler with Anne-marie Clulow. Amongst the rest of the cast, James Borthwick (the Russian patriot Molokov) is the clearest and the only one who’s every word is intelligible in song. But the night belongs to young Brennan Holder (the Russian chess grandmaster) who is fast establishing his reputation as a leading man.
This unusual choice for Pieter Toerien’s established creative team of musical supervisor-arranger Charl-Johan Lingenfelder and director Paul Warrick Griffin, Chess is their most robust production to date. The cast cope well with what is at times a hellishly difficult score. Conceptually some of the choreography is preposterous, but the new revolve for the theatre’s stage has certainly paid off.
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If you object to two or more of the following: smoking pot, gay sex, promiscuity, passivism, nudity and long hair – then seeing the first half of Hair ought do you some good. If not, you may want to catch the final ten minutes and the curtain call, when this revival at last achieves a vague echo of its original import. We hear a news bulletin that G.W. Bush will escalate troop deployment in Iraq and the tribe sing Let the Sunshine In.
The production team of Paul Warwick Griffin and the multi-talented Charl-Johan Lingenfelder, together with several of the cast, have done far better before. Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat was long on charm, Jesus Christ Superstar was at least dramatically confident. This particular version of Hair for its superficial ersatz approach should be renamed ‘Wig’. Colin Muir’s wigs are wonderful creations; several are boldly anachronistic; but just because the hairpiece fits doesn’t instantly make one a convincing hippy.
Part of the problem is how far society has shifted since the Age of Aquarius. With current films like Shortbus pushing the edge, the famous Hare Krishna (“beads, flowers, freedom, happiness”) song in which the cast strip nude, is no longer shocking or even a statement of freedom. Arguably, it is the opposite, a commodity packaged for audience consumption. The gentleman sitting next to me in the third row used opera glasses.
Overall, the female singers are stronger than the men are. Some of the cast simply can’t sing and it’s hard to figure why they’re up there. Lead Rowan Cloete is satisfactory. Bruce Little does a pleasing turn in drag as anthropologist Margaret Mead.
Very poor accent coaching has produced forced, affected, whiny voices that sound like they belong to cartoon characters. The result is that much of the dialogue and the lyrics are unintelligible.
Keith Anderson’s simple set conceptions deserve some praise.
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