Chess (theatre)



""The game is greater than its players.""

"It really doesn't matter who comes out on top, who gets the chop;

no one's way of life is threatened by a flop.

But we're gonna smash that bastard!

Make him wanna change his name!

Take him to the cleaners and devastate him!

Wipe him out, humiliate him!

We don't want the whole world saying

'They can't even win a game!'

We have never reckoned on coming second;

There's no use in losing!"

- U.S. versus U.S.S.R.

A Rock Opera with music by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus of ABBA and with book and lyrics by Tim Rice. Widely considered to be the latter's Magnum Opus. It was originally produced as a successful Concept Album in 1984, then became a West End production, and eventually reached Broadway. Each version of the show underwent changes in story and music; Rice considers the most recent version, performed in concert at Royal Albert Hall in 2008, to be the official one.

The plot of each version has about this much in common: it concerns the World Chess Championships set against the backdrop of the Cold War. There's the brash American champion Freddie Trumper, the reserved Russian challenger Anatoly Sergievsky, the American's second (and not at all girlfriend) Florence Vassey who switches her affections to the Russian, the Russian's wife Svetlana, KGB and CIA agents (Alexander/Ivan Molokov and Walter de Courcey, respectively) working behind the scenes, and an Arbiter presiding over the tournaments.

This show contains examples of:
"Chorus Member: For no one really likes their offspring fighting to the death."
 * Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder: Sort of. Freddie shows up in Bangkok after a year without any contact with Florence. Anatoly suspects he's in town because of this trope, but it turns he's working
 * Album Title Drop: Subverted in the Concept Album when the only number that's specifically called Chess doesn't have any lyrics.
 * Alternate Character Interpretation: The Musical. Every iteration of Chess seems to have a new take on the characters and even the story.
 * Batman Gambit: "The Deal (No Deal)" --
 * Big Bad Duumvirate: Walter and Molokov become one in Act II, joining forces to cause as much hell for everyone else as they possibly can.
 * Breakaway Pop Hit: "One Night in Bangkok" and "I Know Him So Well".
 * "One Night In Bangkok", as performed by Murray Head, is the last show-tune ever to chart on the Top 40 in the United States. Its then-contemporary new wave sound probably had something to do with it.
 * Break Up Song: "Florence Quits".
 * Broadway Bonus Song: "Someone Else's Story"' is an interesting case. It was added for the Broadway run and given to Florence, but in later productions it goes to Svetlana or even both of them. Some don't bother with it at all.
 * Broken Bird: Florence and Svetlana, the latter a bit more so in post-London versions.
 * BSOD Song: "Pity the Child", which owes a lot to "Judas' Death" in Jesus Christ Superstar.
 * Calling the Old Man Out: "Pity the Child".
 * Captain Obvious: In "The Story of Chess" we have this:
 * Captain Obvious: In "The Story of Chess" we have this:

"Reporter: Does your opponent deserve such abuse?
 * The Chessmaster: Molokov and Walter. Ironically, both of the literal chessmasters are just, well, pawns.
 * Cold War: While the musical is called Chess, the Cold War and all the ploys and posturing of the US and USSR dominate much of the plot. Interestingly, they mostly do away with the whole "West good, East bad" bit that characterizes most Western stories set during the time period. Both sides have some pretty despicable people working for them and will go to any lengths to get what they want, even if it means
 * Color Coded for Your Convenience: In the Royal Albert Hall version. America is coded as white, and the USSR as black. Freddie wears solid white, Anatoly wears a black jacket and a white shirt (and is the only chess-player to switch sides during the play), and Viigand wears solid black. Fits for some of the other characters too -- Svetlana, the Russian, wears black; Molokov, a Russian who collaborates with the Americans, wears a gray-ish suit; Florence starts off wearing black (just before and during when she's dissatisfied with Freddie) but then switches to white after the act break (just before and during when she becomes dissatisfied with Anatoly); and Walter wears dark clothes in the first act (when he helps Anatoly defect) but white in the second (when his concerns are mostly with recovering American spies).
 * Concept Album: Did rather well in that it produced two hits and that garnered press attention for the show.
 * Crazy People Play Chess: And how. Freddie's obviously nuts, and Anatoly may not be far behind by the end.
 * Cut Song: The Broadway version, which was famously being rewritten as the season went on, has these a plenty. "Let's Work Together", the Villain Song, was cut early on. But even before that, "East and West" seems to have been cut before opening night; it was only shown during previews. (For the interested, it took the place of "Embassy Lament" and featured two CIA guys trying to convince Anatoly to move to New York City or LA, respectively).
 * Dark Reprise: Being a Rock Opera, there are plenty of these.
 * Dirty Communists: Freddie's perception of them.

Freddie: All Soviets deserve abuse."

"Now I'm
 * Also Florence's perception of them, although she has changed her tune since arriving at the competition and meeting Anatoly.
 * Disappeared Dad: Florence, hers is occasionally used as a plot device, and Freddie to a lesser extent.
 * Distant Duet: "You and I" was done this way in the Concept Album, but this version of staging it never really stuck for any of the productions.
 * "I Know Him So Well" is often done as one.
 * Drunken Song: "Der Kleine Franz"
 * Duet Bonding: The entire purpose of "Mountain Duet" was to establish the relationship between Florence and Anatoly.
 * Dysfunction Junction: World chess championships apparently attract emotionally crippled Jerkass manchildren, women with abandonment issues, and self-absorbed adulterers. As Svetlana characterizes them: "Esoterics, paranoids, hysterics."
 * This is, to a degree, Truth in Television -- the roster of chess champions is not exactly a list of the emotionally balanced. See Crazy People Play Chess.
 * Europop: The Concept Album definitely falls into this trope, although it's been progressively toned down over years. There's only so much you can do with a thirty piece orchestra.
 * Everyone Calls Him Barkeep: The Arbiter. It makes sense that he doesn't have a name since he doesn't really care about everyone else's problems unless they're interrupting the game, making him pretty one-dimensional.
 * In the Broadway version he was explicitly named Constantine Stannos, and was a Greek businessman. In Sweden he was a Frenchman named Jean Jacques Van Boren. The US Tour made him a Nigerian named Kobe Obe. But again -- none of these names has actually stuck. Also see No Name Given below.
 * Evil Sounds Deep: Molokov
 * Walter's part is also pretty low.
 * Exactly What It Says On the Tin: Subverted. Sure, there's chess in it, but it's the least of everyone's worries.
 * Executive Meddling: Trevor Nunn.
 * Fading Into the Next Song: Done a lot on the Concept Album, but not so much on stage since they usually have a one or two lines of dialogue to cram in before the next cue.
 * Final Love Duet: Subverted with "You and I (Reprise)"
 * Freudian Excuse: Most characters get a song or two that is just this; which characters get which songs depend mostly on the director of the iteration in question.
 * I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Florence and Svetlana both say this about Anatoly in "I Know Him So Well."
 * Irrelevant Act Opener: "The Story of Chess" has nothing to do with the actual plot of the show. "Merano" and "One Night in Bangkok" have very little to do, either, only describing the locations.
 * Jerkass: Freddie Trumper, though given the source material this is unsurprising. (If anything he's less of one than the guy he's based on.)
 * Some productions attempt to transform him into a Jerkass Woobie; YMMV on whether it works or not.
 * Kent Brockman News: Walter is ostensibly the reporter covering the match, but that takes a back seat to his trying to influence it and mess with the players through his coverage (and other actions). This extends to him arranging for a video of Anatoly's (abandoned) family to play during an interview of Anatoly, with the predictable effects on Anatoly.
 * Manipulative Bastard: Molokov.
 * Money Song: "The Merchandisers".
 * My Country Right or Wrong: Anatoly, in an unusual way.
 * No Accounting for Taste: Florence and Freddie. Word of God confirmed this at the album stage, however by the time the production rolled round, the need for Adaptation Expansion means that Florence says she loves him. Also implied for Anatoly and Svetlana.
 * No Name Given: Anatoly and Freddie are simply "The Russian" and "The American" in the original Concept Album. Also, The Arbiter only has a name in a few versions (Jean Jacques van Boren, Constantine Stannos, Kobe Obe), though nobody calls him that anyway.
 * Obstructive Bureaucrat: "Embassy Lament". The song is so dryly witty that it turns into Anti Villain Song, if it was ever a Villain Song to begin with.
 * Only Friend: Florence is Freddie's (or at least says she is -- given his behavior, it's not hard to believe), although by the end of the first act even she gets fed up and leaves him.
 * Opening Ballet: "The Golden Bangkok"
 * Pyrrhic Victory: Anatoly considers his entire chess career thus far to have been one big one.

Where I want to be and who I want to be

And doing what I always said I would and yet

I feel I haven't won at all!"

"Let him spill out his hate till he knows he's deserted.
 * Pretty in Mink: On occasion, but they're fake since this is an unnecessary expense even in a professional production where a faux would do.
 * Rage Quit: Freddie does this in the first game we see him play.
 * Sanity Slippage Song: A variation in the Concept Album, when at the end of "The Deal", everyone else comments on Freddie's descent into his own crapulence:

There's no point wasting time preaching to the perverted."

"Chorus: We don't want the whole world saying "They can't even win a game.""
 * Scenery Porn: The first London production with the bank of TV screens. Since then staging, even in professional productions, has been pretty basic.
 * Self Plagiarism: Some of the music borrows from previous compositions written by Andersson and Ulvaeus for ABBA. In particular, the chorus of "I Know Him So Well" was based on the chorus of "I Am An A" and the chorus of "Anthem" used the chord structures from the guitar solo from "Our Last Summer".
 * Serious Business: What the Arbiter describes as "a simple board game" ends up being very serious business for all the parties involved. In "Difficult and Dangerous Times" the US and the USSR both make it very clear early on that it's much more than a game to them.


 * Sex Is Boring: During "One Night in Bangkok," Freddie shows no interest in the ladies -- or gents -- and says, "I get my kicks above the waistline, Sunshine!"
 * The Arbiter claims he cannot be bribed because, among other things, he believes this.
 * Shout Out: Tim Rice named Florence after his gran.
 * Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Puts the "sliding" in the sliding scale. It starts out a touch on the idealistic side, then takes a hard right into cynicismville. "Nobody's Side" is a bit cynical, but
 * Smug Straight Edge: The Arbiter can come across this way, with his insistence that he (and, by implication, he alone) cannot be bribed by anything from women to drugs, or in any other way swayed from his loyalty to the rules of chess.
 * The Stoic: Viigand, whose most notable scene is calmly practicing chess as the entire Soviet delegation breaks into raucous song and dance around him. Molokov even calls him a "chess-playing machine."
 * Triang Relations: Depends on the adaptation, but version 4 features in most of them in at least some manner. One possible combination has Svetlana as A, Anatoly as B, and Florence as C. Alternately it can work with Freddie as A, Florence as B, and Anatoly as C.
 * Unwanted Spouse: Poor Svetlana.
 * Very Loosely Based On a True Story: Sort of. The story has some elements that mirror real life, such as Freddie (in reality Bobby Fischer) being an ass  Even the 5:1 to 5:5 come back between Anatoly (now mirroring Viktor Korchnoi, particularly in his defection) and Viigand (Anatoly Karpov) is pretty close to what actually happened, only reversed in who was doing the coming back. The retcon takes two forms, the first being of course the love triangle. The second is the switching around of who exactly Anatoly is representing at any given moment. He starts out as Karpov , becomes Korchnoi  , then goes back to being Karpov
 * And then there's the Reality Subtext.
 * Villain Song: "The Soviet Machine," where Molokov relates to his compatriots exactly how dirty they will be playing in order to ensure Anatoly loses.
 * In the Broadway version, there was also "Let's Work Together", which features Walter and Molokov deciding to team up to take down Anatoly, and "No Contest," where Walter prevails on Freddy to crush his opponent.
 * What Could Have Been: Tim Rice, Benny Andersson, and Björn Ulvaeus originally sought out Russian music star Alla Pugacheva to sing the role of Svetlana in the original concept album, but in the case of Art Imitates Life, the Soviet authorities would have none of it, so the English singer Barbara Dickson was cast instead.