Looking Back, I Could Have Played It Differently: the London Script(s)

 

The 2025 Broadway revival of Chess just announced its closing, and one refrain I've heard is that the original London script, or the 2008 Royal Albert Hall concert, is the version that should just be enshrined in the future. And I've written reams of things about my concerns for the London version of Chess. But I never actually finished my lengthy post-mortem. I want to rectify that, for anyone who finds this blog at all interesting.

If you don't know the background: the 1986 production of Chess almost didn't happen. The director, Michael Bennett, withdrew with health problems. He turned out to be dying of AIDS - a fact not shared with lyricist and force behind the musical, Tim Rice. The extremely polished director of the moment, Trevor Nunn, jumped in to save the show - but he demanded that he get creative control over the Broadway transfer. This was granted, and Nunn went ahead with finishing Bennett's work.

The physical staging of the original production mirrored this compromise design. The stage was a fully underlit, tilting, turntable chessboard that sometimes put the actors in danger. They were accompanied by large banks of television screens for some scenes. This fit with Bennett's design for the original - a sort of "seamless choreography" in a brightly lit MTV-like spectacle. To this, Nunn added ... chairs. Lots of chairs. The cast made fun of the show and called it "Chairs" instead of "Chess." Nunn's heavily detailed "cinematic" vision with dynamic towers and rapidly changing sets was fully realized on Broadway. The division is reflected in the script, where "The Deal" and "Endgame" are closer to Bennett's vision while Nunn's heavy hand is present through other numbers.

Until 2001 with the Danish "Complete Cast Album", there was no recording of the London score for Chess. The concept album created most of the production's legend. The short-lived 1988 Broadway cast was recorded, but the new songs and orchestrations for the London production were lost. And the production was only put on in the UK and Europe, while in the US the Richard Nelson script from Broadway was obligatory. Obviously it all became more accessible with "Chess in Concert" in 2008 which showed more of the production. But problems with the casting make this the least listenable of all of Chess's many recordings.

Like the London show, this post has far too much prologue. "The Story of Chess" and "Merano" combine for almost 13 minutes on the 2001 recording. It takes 21 minutes to get to "Where I Want to Be" - the show's "I Want" song. It's usually best to get to this within about 10 minutes, since before that there usually isn't much of the musical's dramatic action. Freddie is also introduced three times in three straight numbers; "What a Scene, What a Joy" interrupts "Merano" and establishes his swagger, "Commie Newspapers" gives exposition about his relationship with Florence, and "Press Conference" establishes him as a jerk. This is a bit too much introduction.

The numbers from "Opening Ceremony" on the album are reordered but nothing really has any dramatic action. "The Arbiter" is moved after "U.S. vs. U.S.S.R." and "Merchandisers" makes some jabs at 1980s consumerism. But they are all scene-setting. Nothing happens for ten minutes on stage. We've now spent 45 minutes in the theatre, and gotten nowhere.

Then "Chess #1" hits, and we finally get to what I call the "well-oiled machine": Quartet, 1956 - Budapest is Rising, Nobody's Side, and Mountain Duet, leading to Chess #2 and Florence Quits. With some changes and additions, this is the basic dramatic spine of every version of Chess, and the most effective part of its dramatic structure. We have clear conflict between the two sides, we have the forbidden romance grow between Florence and Anatoly, and we have a few certified bangers in there for good measure.

And then we stall out immediately. After "Florence Quits," the correct move is made in the concept album; this is the place for "A Taste of Pity," a short song from Freddie. But the original London production placed "Pity the Child" here - spending far more time than we needed with him. And it's too early in the dramatic order for it to make sense. It's not an accident that the 2008 concert and 2025 Broadway revival follow the concept album here.

The defection sequence, which should be very dramatic, turns out to be rather dull overall. "Embassy Lament" is a bit of a comic patter number, and then Florence sings "Heaven Help My Heart" because it's time for her to sing now. A pretty song, but in this placement it fails to convey the substance it needs to. Florence is worried about this whole affair, but we're stopping the defection scene just to get a solo that could just as well have been in Act II. "Anatoly and the Press" is too short; the longer 1988 Broadway version is better. At least "Anthem" is a perfect Act I closer.

Act II opens with "One Night in Bangkok." It gives the chorus more to do. Sadly the "Golden Ballet," a lengthy instrumental entr'acte with a ballet segment, seems to have been completely cut and has never been recorded. (This should not be confused with the shorter "Golden Bangkok" which matches what was on the concept album.)

Then we have "One More Opponent," a sweet little song that is basically an info dump. And "You and I" - now written as a love duet for Anatoly and Florence, with an upbeat conclusion. I don't think it was necessary, and I think the concept album track "Argument" which has been lost from the show's production history is stronger. It at least does more to build Anatoly's drive to win his second match than anything in the London script.

Which does bring us to the split-match problem. Basically: we spent a bunch of time building up to the Trumper-Sergievsky match in the first act, and it's now resolved. Freddie lost. The pressure is off, and Anatoly is a world champion. He is instead defending his title against a cypher from Russia named Viigand. We aren't really invested in the second match as an audience. The 2025 Broadway script used the idea that Freddie forfeited rather than losing outright to give Anatoly some more motivation.

So anyway. We get to "The Soviet Machine." Like everything in the London version, it is good but a bit too much. A fun three-and-a-half minute number with some Cossack-style dancing gets stretched for another one and a half to two minutes with a long, droning part. It's unnecessary and kills the momentum, which is crucial in the second act.

This leads us into the deep plot. Molokov calls Walter and tells him about Florence's father, and makes the whole pitch about getting Florence's father back. In terms of plot, we now have a background element from Act I becoming central. Meanwhile "The Interview" provides a great dramatic confrontation between Freddie and Anatoly - an underrated moment between them. Many revisions of the London production, including the 2008 concert, place "Someone Else's Story" here and give it to Svetlana, but I find that this kills the momentum that has been building.

"The Deal" in the original London production was a masterful expressionist piece of staging, but I maintain that it would be very difficult to make it happen in a realistic film, because characters go from place to place and sing rather abstractly at one another. London also made the crucial mistake of cutting Anatoly's lengthy response to Freddie ("Refugee / total sh*t" etc.), weakening the important scene between them. But it's fast and it's fun and it makes things good and dramatic.

Then we hit "I Know Him So Well," where Florence and Svetlana sing because it's time to sing again. It's a great number but there's no context here. This should be a weighty encounter but it just doesn't do anything dramatically. Of course it still gets a hand because it's pretty. That brings us to "Talking Chess."

I maintain that "Talking Chess" is the crucial problem for the entire show. For almost three hours you've been following a show where Florence is the emotional center of the work. Now, at the last moment, we have to shift everybody's priorities. Florence getting her father back isn't important. Freddie's impassioned "It can all be different now, Florence, I love you" in "The Deal" doesn't matter; how can Anatoly let mediocrity win? Anatoly sang some nice things about his love for Florence in "You and I" but he isn't willing to lose for her.

The structural issue that Chess faces is that Anatoly is the protagonist, but Florence is the main character. What I mean is this: Florence is the emotional and tonal center of the piece. She gets top billing and the final bow. She has two or three solo numbers, several major duets, and the most time on stage of anyone. She is the last one who is going to be on stage. But it is Anatoly's action that matters in the end, and Anatoly chooses to win.

At this point I have to express my working theory of Chess. I think that the most important lines are the finale of the London "Endgame":
"Is there no one in my life
Who will not claim
The right to steal
My work, my name
My success, my fame
And my freedom?"

My feeling has been, for twenty-five years, that Chess is to some degree about Tim Rice facing the pressures of fame, success, and love affairs. Anatoly is a married man who has a love affair with Florence, in no small part, because Tim Rice was a married man who had a love affair with Elaine Paige. And I think a lot of "Endgame" is Rice expressing his feelings about the expectations that others have placed on him.

But we have not been heading here in a direct path. The Anatoly who appears in "Talking Chess" and "Endgame" and "You and I - Reprise" in the London script has not been sufficiently built up. We understand his defection in Act I; we don't understand his dissatisfaction in Act II. "Argument" was cut, which really gave us the only hint of it we get.

"Endgame" is a glorious piece of musical theatre. It works as a number. (Even though Tim Rice's cleverest phrase, "Take my blues as read," is one you can only catch when you read the written lyrics.) But we don't land anywhere satisfying from it because we never earned Anatoly's angst. And the ending, where Walter tells Florence she isn't getting her father back and she sings a few bars of "Anthem," is a dud because of it.

This is why I say the London script of Chess cheats: the score has to do the work of telling more of the story than it is able to. The script doesn't build the plot and characterization that it needs to. And it doesn't stick the landing. It is a wonderful score, and it is an entertaining musical if you ever get a chance to see it. But it could be great, and it missed that.

The Broadway Revival

 

The long-awaited Broadway revival of Chess opened for previews in October 2025. This is a review based on the preview matinee on November 1. It contains extensive spoilers, so take it as such.

I want to start with this: from the perspective of performances and the score, this was an unmitigated triumph. The show is enjoyable from front to back, and the leads repeatedly bring down the house - especially with "Nobody's Side," an absolute powerhouse from Lea Michele. Aaron Tveit's "Pity the Child" and Nicholas Christopher's "Anthem" are also stunning. So as I'm critical of the musical, please take it in context: I loved this show and seeing it on Broadway was the thrill of a lifetime.

The revival is extremely minimalist. Very little set dressing is ever used, and at some points this really spoils moments that could've been helpful in terms of storytelling. I prefer minimalism to maximalism; the over-dressed sets and complex revolves of the Trevor Nunn versions are not superior.

Danny Strong's revised book is based, largely, on the London script, using some changes that were part of the 2008 concert revision. Obviously the idea that the concert would provide a "definitive" version has not panned out. It cuts several numbers, including "Commie Newspapers," "Merchandisers," and "Talking Chess."

The audience member has to decide whether or not they like the Arbiter as a cheeky fourth-wall-breaking narrator who does a lot of the narrative work. Some will find that this is an effective way of putting forward a rather involved plotline; others will find it heavy-handed and mistrusting the audience. Given that the London score's story is as muddy as it is, and had begun the Arbiter-as-narrator premise without fully leaning into it, I think it does more good than harm.

I do think that on the whole, Strong's attitude, his wit and irony, are not a perfect match for Tim Rice's material. That does lead to a good chunk of tonal whiplash in the show. However, this isn't as severe as it can be during the Richard Nelson (Broadway) and Robert Coe (US Tour) scripts, where the characters can seem like different people during the book scenes and the songs.

The Arbiter announces that it is a Cold War musical, and the script leans into that. It begins with "US vs. USSR" and situates the first act against the 1979 SALT II negotiations and the second around the 1983 Able Archer negotiations. (I've noted in the past that this sacrifices chess accuracy - the relevant championships were in 1978, 1981, and 1984 - for Cold War relevance.) The number is not a great opener but it serves to underline Strong's point.

A wise move is borrowing the Moscow setting for "Where I Want to Be" from Stockholm. By my watch this placed the "I want" number at ten minutes into the show, which is a crucial structural point that the London script completely dropped. However, the scene introducing it does put the Soviets into the "win or we shoot you" school of villainy that is a bit over-the-top (as I've written previously). This will continue with threats against Svetlana and Anatoly's children in Act II. However, a fellow theatregoer noted that she felt more involved with the high stakes, so perhaps one can't complain too much.

I'm deeply uncomfortable with the idea that Freddie is not just an asshole American but is actually seriously mentally ill and using medication. This is a significant Act I plot point - at Walter's prodding, Florence will end up hiding Freddie's pills and contribute to his breakdown. I think this makes Florence more culpable in the production's grey morality, and it doesn't sit too well with me.

Walter's role does need to be addressed: he is basically only there as a plot convenience, representing the American position in negotiations. In the first act, he opposes both Freddie winning, and Anatoly defecting - to the point where he tries to tip Molokov off about the latter. In the second act he's helping Molokov because of Able Archer. None of the original character's duality - his mixed implication in the media or business end and as an ambiguous CIA agent - is preserved. He really has no redeeming qualities, and very little music, with a lot of his London recitative converted to dialogue. He even repeats the same sob story once in each act, to strong audience laughter in the second. As a result he is by far the weak link in the production.

A positive angle that Strong introduces is the idea that Florence and Anatoly previously had an encounter in Stockholm. I like this for a couple of reasons. First is that it stretches out the arc of their love affair - it isn't love after a few minutes, it's people who probably had an ill-advised encounter (that was romantic but explicitly not sexual) and reconnect in a desperate situation. This was a weakness in the motivations for Anatoly's defection. The second is that it is realistic - the chess world is small and people meet each other.

Wisely, Strong does little meddling with the "well oiled machine." Another move that will split audiences is how the chess match between Freddie and Anatoly is handled, with the players speaking their moves and then monologuing. The weakness in staging is that we never see an actual chessboard, making the game a bit too abstracted.

Likewise, the minimalism really impacts the storytelling when, before "The American and Florence," we are told Freddie is tearing up his hotel room, looking for microphones in the walls. That's a good idea, but it's a moment where I really wanted to see it. But it was followed up by a "Nobody's Side" that, just like in the Kennedy Center, knocked my socks clean off.

One of the few pieces of staging that is provided is a bed, used for "Heaven Help My Heart." Having Anatoly and Florence together in this context more or less makes the song work in Act I; it certainly works better than it did in the London version where it really does feel like Florence sings because it's her turn to sing.

Turning to the problematic Act II. I have to give credit to Strong for two particular positives in his handling of the second act.

One is the treatment of Svetlana. Hannah Cruz is absolutely stunning in the part, and Strong manages to make her a fairly complex character. Giving her "He is a Man, He is a Child" is one of the strongest moves, but she also manages to make her part in "The Deal" an almost seductive moment. Her concerns feel genuine, as is a moment where Anatoly calls her out - she feels like a flawed person with her own arc. Also playing her as a blonde bombshell against a brunette Florence works very well; it reminds me of Stockholm in some ways.

The second is how the script gives the audience a reason to care if Anatoly beats Viigand. In this production, Freddie resigns without completing a game. We see that it clearly bothers Anatoly that he has not had the chance to show he is the best. This is remniscent of the situation Karpov was in during the 1978 championship - and the best motive to date for the London structure with two matches.

After "He is a Man...", Strong more or less cheats London-style, running through some strong numbers and hoping that they string together logically. He re-edits "The Deal" in a way that works, but the audience also comes close to applause fatigue with "Pity" before "I Know Him So Well"; happily the cast is strong enough to simply power through the numbers. I did enjoy that "Talking Chess" was replaced with a dialogue scene tat works fairly well.

Okay. So far I have been pretty complementary, I feel, even if I have some notes. But I felt like the major structural problems were in "Endgame" and after.

"Endgame" is played under the threat of nuclear war, as Anatoly is supposed to lose so that the Russian generals won't retaliate if any munitions go off during NATO training exercises. That background is, in my opinion, far over the top; the personal stakes should be high enough.

One weird misstep is that the verse of Endgame that Tim Rice gave to Freddie in the 2008 concert was instead given to Walter. "Sixty-four squares, they're the reason you know you exist" makes so much more sense for Freddie and none whatsoever with Walter. This is sort of mitigated by giving Freddie some of the chorus's lines during the later portion - which comes across very strongly.

But a serious directorial crime is playing a countdown over Anatoly's finale in "Endgame." Nicholas Christopher pours his heart and soul into Anatoly's stirring words - except there's a ton of noise and you struggle to hear them. Awful decision, no other way to put it.

After this, the decision is made to have "Someone Else's Story" sung by Florence. Yes, after "Endgame." It's sort of a wistful ballad moment - but Florence already sang "I Know Him So Well" and her verses in "Endgame" that told us she understood her affair with Anatoly couldn't last. It feels like it's there pretty much because Florence is singing the song again and it needed a spot. I feel like there should be a way to make this work; but I'm not convinced it was really earned.

The handling of "You and I - Reprise" is my least favorite decision in the show. The duet is cut in half, and uses the deeply inferior rewrite lyrics. This has never worked well in any production; I want the whole thing, and I prefer it as the final number with the original lyrics. But perhaps it's a case of the audience not knowing what they're really missing.

The thing is, the show gives Florence her father back. It comes off as a happy ending, rather than the relentless negativity of the 1988 Broadway version, and I think it may actually succeed because of it.

The Arbiter closes out the show with a couple of lines from "The Story of Chess." Which. I don't know, I like the show to end on "We go on pretending, Stories like ours, Have happy endings." That's my preference, it has been for twenty-odd years; I've gotten to have it my way a few times, so I can't complain that much. At least it doesn't end with too much Walter followed by the "Anthem" reprise.

There are things I'm not happy about. At the same time, I think this has more likelihood of succeeding than the 2008 London concert would, or if the rumors that the Stockholm production would be brought into English had come through.

Would I do it differently? Of course. Am I over the moon that a good version of Chess is on Broadway? Yes.

"Our Ambassador Has Arrived."

Anatoly Valkov, Soviet Ambassador to Thailand

This is the second time I've thought about one particular exchange in the Broadway script for Chess.

MOLOKOV: Our ambassador has arrived.

ANATOLY: Our ambassador?

MOLOKOV: Didn't I tell you? He's asked to play a single game against the world's Champion.

ANATOLY: Tonight? No, Molokov -

MOLOKOV: He went to university with the First Secretary. You have no choice.

This is a nice exchange, dramatically, which sets up the context for "Where I Want to Be": Anatoly, despite his success, is at the whim of people who have power over his life and actions. (It also sets up a neat parallel with the US Secretary of State, George Shultz, who one might think Nelson used as a deliberate punchline in the second act.) I've already analyzed Molokov saying "First Secretary" - clearly not what a Russian would say in this context. But I found it interesting that the ambassador to Thailand would be mentioned.

First, let's establish a few ground facts. The Soviet ambassador to Thailand in 1988, Anatoly Valkov (seen above in the picture, taken from here), definitely didn't go to university with the First Secretary. Gorbachev went to Moscow State University, and Valkov to the prestigious Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. His predecessor, Valentin Kasatkin, is also not recorded as having attended Moscow State University. So it's very unlikely to actually have a college buddy of Gorby as your ambassador. Still, you could change the line to "He's a friend of Gorbachev. You have no choice."

It's also worth noting that the assignment to Thailand was in no way a backwater assignment. Kasatkin and Valkov were accomplished and decorated diplomats, and they were also assigned to the UN's Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, a regional growth initiative.

All of this leads us to the fun part: espionage.

Back in 1983, a Soviet trade official named Victor Baryshev was arrested for spying by the Thai government. According to the Washington Post:

Thai intelligence sources were quoted as saying at the time that up to half the approximately 100 Soviet officials attached to the embassy and Soviet trade missions, international organizations, transport companies and news agencies in Bangkok were actually KGB or GRU spies.

This would fit the general pattern in Soviet diplomacy, where embassies doubled as launching points for espionage. We're plainly meant to read Molokov as being in the KGB, even though Freddie is the only character to name the agency, and it makes sense that he could be connected to the ambassador.

The Washington Post article, from 1984, includes a fascinating line from a letter in Asiaweek to the Russians: "Thailand is rather a hostile place for the KGB." This makes the plot of Chess, which involves KGB intrigue in Bangkok in every version other than Stockholm, take on an extra layer.

Through the period from 1980 to 1988, Thailand was under the control of Prem Tinsulanonda, a staunch royalist and general who had "converted" himself into the role of Prime Minister. In August 1988, Prem was succeeded by Chatichai Choonhavan, a politician overthrown in a 1991 coup d'etat. The overall attitude of Thailand to the USSR was cautious but improving - they wanted to trade but were leery of Soviet military involvement with Vietnam and Cambodia. In 1987, there were bilateral visits between Thailand and the USSR by officials from both countries.

What goes down in Chess makes perfect sense given the actual pattern of how the KGB and GRU (the Russian equivalent of the CIA) sent agents around the world. It seems fitting that, to illustrate Anatoly being under the thumb of people with hidden agendas, he would be asked to play the ambassador - just not one who went to university with Gorbachev.

The curious timing of Chess

The musical Chess is about one or two world chess championships. These are unique events, which from 1948 to 1990 were exclusively under the auspices of the Fédération Internationale des Échecs (FIDE) or World Chess Federation. In the period 1963-1990 the championship was held regularly every 3 years, with only two exceptions.

The first exception was in 1975. Bobby Fischer had defeated Boris Spassky in 1972, in one of the most famous world championship matches ever (and one of the matches that helped inspire Chess). In the intervening years, Fischer did not play competitive chess, and when FIDE attempted to arrange a match against the winner of the 1974 candidates tournament, Soviet wunderkind Anatoly Karpov, Fischer released a lengthy list of demands. FIDE did not meet these, particularly a specific requirement of a draw with Fischer retaining the title if the match (in a first player to 10 wins format) led to a 9-9 score. Fischer resigned his championship and refused to budge on his demands. No 1975 championship was held, and Karpov was declared World Champion.

Karpov went on to prove he really was World Champion, beating Soviet exile Viktor Korchnoi in 1978 and 1981, in the other matches that inspired Chess. This is where mirror glasses, parapsychologists, games stopped on account of chairs, and so on actually come from.

In 1984 the tournament came around again. This time Karpov was challenged by a new up-and-comer from the Soviet Union, Garry Kasparov. The match was first to six wins, and Karpov won four of the first nine games - seemingly coasting to victory. But a tremendous series of draws would ensue, and Karpov only one a single game, number 27. Kasparov won game 32, and then the pair proceeded to draw 14 more games. Kasparov finally won two games in a row in February 1985, but FIDE president Florencio Campomanes terminated the match with a 5-3 score.

And if you ever doubted that Chess is somewhat more realistic than you thought - well, a 2010 book called The KGB Plays Chess confirmed what Freddie Trumper could only suspect: Campomanes was a KGB asset and was determined that Karpov not lose. Over the objections of both players he wiped the slate clean and began a new match. The 1985 championship was the first to limit the match to 24 games, with ties counting as half of a point and wins as a whole point. Kasparov won, 13-11.

The 1985 match setup had included a rematch clause, so there was a third Karpov-Kasparov championship in 1986. This one was a draw, 12-12, with Kasparov retaining the title. They met again in the regular 1987 championship, with a third drawn result, and finally in 1990, when Kasparov won 12½-11½. The world championship got really complicated after that, but it's out of the time frame for our musical.

The cancellation affair was referenced in the extended version of "The Arbiter's Song" that was used on Broadway: "I control the match, I start it, I can call it off, Kasparov found that out." It's also referenced obliquely in the threat at the start of London "Endgame": "Two weeks ago I gave you a limit of six more games to end this sequence of draws. Five of these have now passed. If today's game does not produce a decision, the match is cancelled."

From a dramaturgical perspective, when did the matches in Chess take place? There is no cancelled 1984 match to drive everything from Karpov-Kasparov, so it makes the most sense for the matches to fall on the regular 3-year schedule. One-year gaps or four-year gaps wouldn't work; FIDE held a whole series of tournaments on a regular schedule to determine the challenger for the title.

In the London production, Freddie is the world champion at the beginning. He wouldn't have taken the championship from Fischer, who was paranoid about the Soviets beating him. What would make the most sense is the following sequence.

1978 - Freddie Trumper beats champion Anatoly Karpov.
1981 - Anatoly Sergievsky beats champion Freddie Trumper.
1984 - Anatoly Sergievsky defends his title from challenger Leonid Viigand.

Conveniently this places the 1981 match (and act one) in Meran, Italy where the real match happened and the lengthy series of draws in the 1984 championship (act two). It's unfortunate for Karpov and Korchnoi whose epic matches never happen.

If you wanted to do the Broadway show, Anatoly is the champion; he would have beaten Karpov in 1981 or 1984, setting the show in 1984 or 1987. For single-match versions where Freddie is the champion, he would have beaten Karpov (who really is the loser in this whole equation; Karpov was a genuinely great chess player)

The time of the Kennedy Center production (1979 and 1983) doesn't work; Freddie won the title in 1978 but the followup matches would have been in 1981 and 1984, inconvenient for the KC book but realistic for our purposes.

What happens when Soviet chess players lose

Workers building the Kolyma Highway in the GULAG system

In the recent Kennedy Center production of Chess, using a modified version of the London book written by Danny Strong, it is outright stated that Anatoly Sergievsky will be killed if he doesn't win the chess championship, and that the previous loser, "Boris Ivanovich", was killed for losing to Freddie Trumper. Set in 1979, this is a stretch of the imagination that appears to have confused the Brezhnev-era USSR for its earlier Stalin-era counterpart, or perhaps to rumors about modern-day North Korea.

Soviet grandmasters in the 1970s were, as a rule, not killed or sent to Gulags for failure. The latter is impossible; the Gulag system was closed down by the 1960s, although there were still prison camps in Siberia, and political dissidents were still mistreated. Brezhnev was notorious for putting public opposition figures in mental hospitals. None of this should be downplayed or under-estimated as violations of human rights; it's simply a question of getting the history right. A Soviet threat in 1983 to send someone to a Gulag is like a threat from an American to send someone to Alcatraz in the same period - great for symbolism but it just wouldn't have happened. And Svetlana in this version is threatened with the Gulags.

The one Soviet grandmaster who did lose the championship to an American was Boris Spassky, who lost the high-profile 1972 championship to Bobby Fischer. In fact, Spassky had the opportunity to claim a forfeit in the 1972 tournament, and was ordered by Soviet officials to claim that Fischer had forfeited the match and the championship remained his. (See 2016 interview with Boris Spassky.) Of course Fischer, who was the prototype of the raving anti-communist American champion, took the title for the United States. Spassky was back playing competitive international chess the next year.

But there really was a Soviet player severely penalized for losing to Bobby Fischer. Only the year prior, Fischer beat Mark Taimanov in the Candidates tournament, winning six games and losing none. The humiliation was so complete that the Soviet authorities thought that Taimanov had lost on purpose as a political act. When Taimanov returned to the Soviet Union, he was found to have illegal literature by dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. He was stripped of his salary as a grandmaster and his right to travel internationally. It was only because he had the right to play in an Interzonal tournament in Leningrad in 1973 that Taimanov would be "rehabilitated" by the Soviet authorities.

(There's a line in the Sydney rewrite of "US vs. USSR" that probably references Taimanov, when Molokov says, "Though it could mean foreign travel has to stop.")

The other player who came under the ire of Soviet authorities was Viktor Korchnoi. He was a slightly different case; Korchnoi was a player who the Soviet chess world conspired against in the 1974 Candidates' Final to determine who would face Bobby Fischer in the 1975 World Championship match that never happened. The Soviet Chess Federation, led in this matter by Tigran Petrosian, wanted to promote the younger generation - in the person of Anatoly Karpov - over Korchnoi's older generation that had been beaten by Fischer.

In 1976 Korchnoi defected in the Netherlands, ultimately ending up in Switzerland. This wasn't impulsive; he had taken care to get his chess library out of the USSR. His family was not allowed to join him, though. Korchnoi bedeviled the Soviet chess system by qualifying twice in a row for the World Championship. He lost both times, in 1978 (Baguio, Philippines) and 1981 (Merano, Italy), to Karpov, who proved himself to be the rightful champion. Korchnoi was hated by the Soviets and they did in fact resort to tricks, such as having a parapsychologist seated in the front row, to undermine him psychologically.

Korchnoi's son, Igor, was actually sent to prison in Siberia when he refused to serve in the army. (He feared that military service would complicate his ability to leave the Soviet Union.) But he served a 30 month sentence and was allowed, along with Korchnoi's wife Bella, to join Korchnoi in exile a year after the Merano match. This proved somewhat awkward as Korchnoi already had a lover and divorced Bella shortly after their reunion. But this is as close as we come to someone actually being thrown in a Gulag over chess.

The level of threat and pressure at work in the original libretto of Chess are roughly historically accurate. Strong is trying to increase the stakes but it comes at the expense of making the Soviets seem strangely maniacal in a period when they were infamous as the sclerotic gerontocracy who presided over a corrupt, suffocating, bureaucratic system in a slow decline. Or to put it another way - no one's life is threatened by a flop.

Concept Album: A bit of story revealed

The recent reissue of the concept album contains a very weird demo of "Press Conference" that was intended to precede "The Russian and Molokov." It's not nearly as effective as the final stage version, and particularly wants for Florence's "Smile, you got your first exclusive story..." section.

More interesting is a brief section of dialogue that was recorded over a demo version of "Der Kleine Franz." It's actually not bad dialogue for Tim Rice's standards, although I do not think that an American would have actually used the term "cock-up." This is the full dialogue:

The American
Well where the hell is he? We're ten minutes late.

Florence
He'll be here.

The American
You're losing your touch, Florence. It's another cock-up. I don't know what I'm doing letting you handle my affairs.

Florence
He'll be here. Will you sit down? Have a drink.

The American
You have a drink. I'm off to look at the mountain. I might be back.

Florence
Wait!

The Russian
Hello. Just you here? Where's your boss, I thought?

Florence
Oh, he's here, he'll be back in a few minutes. Have a drink, while we're waiting.

The Russian
I hope I'm here for the reasons Molokov told me. Or are we being taped? Are we on the air right now?

Florence
Of course not. Look, we're here to get the match together again, to clear up all this misunderstanding.

The Russian
I suppose I should be used to his behavior by now.

After this, Anatoly and Florence segue into "Mountain Duet" as it appears on the album.

Now, in the concept album, this scene is set in "[a] private room in a restaurant half-way up a mountain in Merano," giving us a cozy setting rather than having Anatoly and Florence bundled up - "a drink" rather than "a walk" in Anatoly's first line. The context makes sense of Florence's line "All I can say is moments ago / He was right here, ready and waiting," and the change to the line about cable cars in the London production.

I like the characterizations, particularly Anatoly's bit of paranoia. For some reason, I also really like the idea that Freddie actually walked out on the meeting because of Anatoly being late.

This dialogue could be used in the London script as-is, although the lyrics to "Duet" would have to be changed back to their Concept Album equivalents. I doubt this would be much noted; the Chess lyrics change a lot anyway. And a private room at a restaurant is a different staging challenge, but in many ways a more interesting one.

It's interesting to note that, contra both London and Broadway, Florence and Anatoly don't kiss at the end of this song:

The American and the Russian argue, trade insults and jokes but thanks largely to Florence's delicate touch, they both agree on a press statement sharing blame for the breakdown and to resume playing.

Generally, I think the sketch story in the concept album is more interesting in almost every way than London's; the greatest shame is that the London version went so far afield from it, which particularly hurt Anatoly's characterization. And with this little bit that I'd never heard before, I like that story even a bit more.

Talking London: The Freddie Problem

This is the first of a series of two posts that focus on why "Talking Chess" is bad. I'm skipping "I Know Him So Well" for this post; the second will talk about that a bit, because it's related to Anatoly, rather than Freddie.

In "One Night in Bangkok." Freddie says "Thank God I'm only watching the game, controlling it." This ties in with his subsequent appearance as a media personality. He gives a little bit of narration for the cameras; we have the reversal where in Act I, Freddie antagonized the media, and in Act II he is one of them. This is definitely intentional, although it's not pulled off to its fullest effect.

After this, "The Interview" features Freddie basically attacking Anatoly on the air. He also takes multiple swipes at Florence. This is believable; Freddie is bitter about losing the title, and about what he sees as Florence's betrayal, and has just been unexpectedly given the green light by Walter to take all that out on them. So far, we have a consistent arc from Freddie.

That arc is abruptly cut off in "The Deal." Literally in the scene before this, Freddie was humiliating Anatoly on live television (to the point where Anatoly runs out of the studio before the interview ends), and now he's reaching out to him on Florence's behalf. At this point Freddie is literally the worst person on the face of the earth to send to convince Anatoly to throw the match. Anatoly is completely justified in blowing him off.

Then Freddie approaches Florence, in a "desperate final play." I've already talked about this at some length, and here I just want to point out that a few days earlier he was taking cheap shots at the woman he now claims to still love. This is a dramatic shift in character with no build-up, but it can work - Freddie has a sudden realization when he sees Florence that he still cares about her. It's the kind of thing that a musical can pull off, once.

But to try it twice in the same act is going too far. And in "Talking Chess," out of nowhere, Freddie wants to help Anatoly because he can't stand to see a "mediocrity" like Viigand win. So he tells Anatoly that Viigand's King's Indian Defence has a flaw in it.

This is one of the few times we actually hear the characters talk about chess. The King's Indian Defence was not the Sicilian in terms of popularity, but it was still a very well-explored defence in terms of top-level play in the late 20th century. So it was a well-chosen defence, at least.

But Freddie at first wants to humiliate Anatoly, then he's in love with Florence and wants her to come back to him and "bring back the golden era." Okay, we can live with that. But now he really loves the game of chess? And not only loves it, but he loves it enough to rescue Anatoly's match, giving him information that presumably will help Anatoly to win, which in turn will cost Florence a chance to see her father. You know, the woman he just declared that he still loves?

The idea of loving chess itself isn't a bad one; in a number of productions, actually being chess players seems like a formality that the characters are going through in order to focus on international intrigue, fame and affairs of the heart. We know from "Pity" that chess was Freddie's respite from a bad home life as a child. But really, this isn't about his feelings about chess. It's about how he feels about Anatoly.

You see, if the conclusion is that letting Viigand beat Anatoly is letting mediocrity win, then the necessary premise is that Anatoly is great. Freddie has come around to thinking that Anatoly - who pretty much beat him primarily because Freddie was playing awful chess under emotional duress - is so much greater of a player that he deserves to represent chess as its world champion.

To be honest, I don't buy it for a second. I understand the idea that Freddie really loves chess as a game, but not that he's suddenly gained a respect for Anatoly that he clearly never evinced anywhere else in the show. There's not even a hint of grudging respect; "He's the best Red on the circuit" is a textbook example of damning with faint praise.

After "Talking Chess," Freddie delivers a snippet of media introduction to the Anatoly/Viigand finale, and then disappears from the show. Since that is pretty much meaningless from a character standpoint, it means that this is the end of his very strange character arc. He doesn't even merit a further mention. It's a totally unsatisfying way to conclude for a character who dominates the opening of the show as totally as Freddie does.

"Talking Chess" is meant as something of a redemption moment for Freddie, but it doesn't work, because he's bounced around so much. Helping Anatoly beat Viigand is not the redemption the audience wants to see for Freddie. This is part of the split-match motivation problem; there's too much truth to the line "How many times do you want to be champion anyway?" from "The Deal." The audience wants Florence to get her father back, and in that context helping Anatoly win is not going to make Freddie seem like less of a jerk.

It's somewhat apropos that Freddie goes out on a bit of narration in Act II of London Chess. He bounces around so much in the act in terms of motivation that he's left effectively as a plot tool and little more. And until the 2008 concert, he doesn't even get "Pity" in this act.

Talking London: How to Cheat in Musical Theatre

Act II in London proceeds after "The Soviet Machine" with probably the best scene invented for it, "The Interview." At Walter's prodding, Freddie launches into a confrontation with Anatoly that is really searing musical theatre, the kind of confrontation-in-song that Chess does so very well. Musically it's a two-person version of "Press Conference." It's a nice piece of symmetry with the first act, and continues the media theme that London tried to do a bit more with. Walter's part is weak, but as soon as Anatoly and Freddie are on stage together it's dynamite. It's a shame that there isn't more material for Chess that explores the tension between the two main chess players.

Then it goes directly on to "The Deal." This is a breakneck pace that most modern productions lose by giving "Someone Else's Story" to Svetlana. The song would work far better at the top of the act, maybe even before "Bangkok," as Sydney did it. And Svetlana should sing the lyrics that were written for her. "Will he miss me if I go?" makes no sense whatsoever for Svetlana to sing, at all, in any version of Chess. Having "Story" early in the act can be followed by a moment when Molokov welcomes Svetlana to Bangkok, turning it into a wonderful bit of foreshadowing.

But this is a post about cheating, and I haven't talked about the topic at all. That's because I wanted to clear up those two numbers. What I really mean is when a musical uses a song to paper over the fact that a piece of the plot has taken a turn (or in this case, several turns) that are illogical.

Up until "The Deal," the London Chess is a plodding, realistic musical that sets up its plot points heavily and then covers them thoroughly. "The Deal" is about 8 minutes and 30 seconds of something completely different. Chess has flirted with absurdism in "The Arbiter's Song" and "The Soviet Machine," but that is simply an inherent danger of dance numbers.

Suddenly, with "The Deal," it is a highly stylized piece - almost expressionist - narrated by an omniscient Arbiter. Characters pair off in spaces defined only by lighting and blocking, and in the original production wore stark black and white. They sing a lot of material that could not possibly be diegetic; for a large chunk of "The Deal," it's not even clear what is happening in the implied world being created by the play.

Three scenes later, London Chess has its single most brilliant scene in "Endgame." It's stylistically similar to "The Deal," using lighting, blocking and costuming to create a strange effect, but it works because "Endgame" takes place entirely in Anatoly's head. Viigand is not even present at the chess board. The problem is, "The Deal" is supposed to actually be happening.

Molokov's bullying makes sense, but when Svetlana and Anatoly reprise "Where I Want to Be," what exactly does this represent? It's a solid moment emotionally, but as a piece of theatre representing something in the world, it does not work. Where is Svetlana meeting Anatoly, and under what circumstances? If we were making a realistic non-musical film of the show, what exactly would be happening? It's not at all clear from this part of "The Deal."

Walter's confrontation with Florence makes sense. And we can give Florence her soliloquy; it's an important function of songs in musical theatre is to let characters express emotions like this. Walter and Molokov in the lavatory (presumably, from the blocking) is a functional micro-scene.

Then the music gets into the concept album "Deal," reprising "Florence Quits." Freddie, out of nowhere, talks to Anatoly and then Florence, and pleads with each of them only to be rejected. The whole thing unravels quickly, and the finale of "The Deal" - where everybody sings some lines of "Nobody's Side" - happens in a space that exists only on stage.

It's an emotional tour de force, but what is going on in this mega-scene is totally unclear. It particularly comes off the rails between Freddie and Florence; the absurdity climaxes in Florence's line, "Chess has nothing to do with this" - a statement that is not true about "The Deal," which is entirely about characters trying to convince Anatoly to throw a chess match, but Freddie wasn't talking to her about chess. He's asking her to come back to him ("Stick with me, honey / Leave him be, honey") and she reacts to something completely different. This choice sticks out as the poorest rewrite in London, since the concept album lyrics ("Are you sick? Are you mad? ...") make much more sense given what Freddie says.

Then there is Freddie's breakdown as the song ends. Given that he has no problem attacking Florence in "The Interview," his sudden confession "It can all be different now Florence - I love you!" is jarringly out of character. (And it will get much worse two scenes later.)

The one character we actually need to hear from in "The Deal," Anatoly, says very little. His concept album riposte to Freddie, which is followed by Freddie's brutal counter about a "tinpot competition", was stripped from the London score but restored for some productions, including the 2008 concert. We have more or less set up "Endgame," but cutting him to "Who put you up to this? There's no deal!" and then his lines about "preaching to the perverted" take him from a dynamic character to a bystander in this sequence.

I have to step back and say that I love the concept album "The Deal (No Deal)." It's a hard driving rock moment in the score and one of the most powerful confrontation songs in a show full of them. When Freddie comes on with an electric guitar playing and starts singing "Communist / Democrat," it's a brilliant moment. Emotionally the "Who'd Ever Think/Guess It?" verses are some of the most powerful moments in the show. But it's a difficult enough theatrical scene to pull off by itself; it's rarefied, suspended in the air and missing the solid grounding of the rest of the show.

The London "Deal" takes this and turns it up to eleven, completely losing touch with reality. The finale blows the roof off the house, but at the cost of anything resembling dramatic coherence. (And it's about to be followed by a show-stopping eleven o'clock number in "I Know Him So Well," and then a climax in "Endgame.")

What is a shame is that "The Deal" represents an intriguing theatrical vision. It is a scene driven by narration and the strength of the music, rather than the plodding recitative of songs like "Florence and Molokov" or thudding dialogue about slime and slugs. It's probably one of the moments that hews most closely to Michael Bennett's original concept for the show, with seamless choreography, a stage that changed shape, banks of monitors and minimalist sets. And it is a wonderful hint of what could have been done with Chess, even if the vision was too ethereal and difficult for a director like Nunn to pull off.

But the dramatic underpinnings are not there. Instead of the story unfolding, the dramatic vision of "The Deal" is used to cover up the weaknesses of the storyline and characterizations. I'm going to spend the next two posts talking about what went wrong, first with Freddie, then with Anatoly.