Broadway Reviews Theatre Review by Howard Miller - November 16, 2025 Chess. Music and lyrics by Benny Andersson, Tim Rice, and Björn Ulvaeus. Based on an idea by Tim Rice. New book by Danny Strong. Directed by Michael Mayer. Choreography by Lorin Latarro. Scenic design by David Rockwell. Costume design by Tom Broecker. Lighting design by Kevin Adams. Sound design by John Shivers. Video design by Peter Nigrini. Hair, wig and makeup design by Luc Verschueren for Campbell Young Associates. Original orchestrations by Anders Elias. Orchestrations by Anders Elias and Brian Usifer. Music supervision and additional arrangements by Brian Usifer. Music direction by Ian Weinberger. Music coordinator John Miller. Associate director Johanna McKeon. Associate choreographer Travis Waldschmidt. Dialect coach Kate Wilson.
Sometime back in the early 1970s, Tim Rice, Andrew Lloyd Webber's collaborator on the then already-wildly successful concept albums and stage shows Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Jesus Christ Superstar, came to his pal with a new idea. How about working together on a new piece, one that would bring together the worlds of cold war espionage and the international chess rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union? Lloyd Webber took a pass, as he was already immersed in a little something called Cats. So Rice shelved the idea for a while, until he found new teammates in the writing pair from the Swedish pop group ABBA, Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, whose perennial fan favorite musical, Mamma Mia!, is currently and most happily ensconced on Broadway for another go-round. But back in 1984, it was the concept album known as "Chess" that they and Tim Rice created together. Two years later, a largely sung-through stage version was launched in London's West End, where it ran for three years. Then in 1988, Chess came to Broadway, reconceptualized as a full-blown book musical with plenty of dialog to give substance to the story. It did not go over well, however, closing after 68 regular performances. While Chess has been produced in various formats globally since then, the current Broadway production is its first in nearly 40 years. Conceptually, it's not hard to make sense of the plot. The show takes place during the late 1970s and into the early 1980s. The Cold War, here embodied by CIA operative Walter de Courcey (a droll Sean Allan Krill) and KGB apparatchik Alexander Molokov (a dour Bradley Dean), is in full swing. Much is riding on a world championship chess match between American wunderkind Freddie Trumper (a charismatic Aaron Tveit) and Russian grandmaster Anatoly Sergievsky (a commanding Nicholas Christopher). One strength of this production is the way it clearly demonstrates the impact of the pressure on both players, both in terms of the game itself and in terms of their roles as representing their competing global powers.
The fourth side of this knotty set of relationships is represented by Svetlana (Hannah Cruz), Anatoly's wife whom he has abandoned, first to his obsessive chess-centered life and then to Florence. Who will end up with whom, who will become the chess champion, and whose side will gain the upper hand in the rapidly heating-up Cold War? These are the elements of the plot. It's really not all that difficult to grasp the components of the plot, yet things fail to come together with a narrative that is all over the place. Instead, all of the energy has been poured into the singing performances, 30 numbers all told with only one reprise. Power pop. Power operatic arias. Even some Power Gilbert and Sullivan-style patter. Ambition personified, Chess is all about the score, and nothing as silly as an actual plot can stand in its way. Act I at least attempts to marry music and story, all under the watchful eye of the show's narrator, the chess Arbiter (Bryce Pinkham), who fills us in on some of the details and yet, for reasons that defy understanding, throws in the occasional one-liner aimed at taking us out of the place and time and into today's American political environment. We're talking jokes that could have been culled from the writers' room trash can at "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," jokes that relate Freddie Trumper's last name to that of the President, or that make fun of Robert Kennedy and his brain worm. I cannot begin to understand what that's all about, so let's move on to the singing. On the plus side, the sound design allows for clarity of the lyrics; on the down side, the only other knob on the sound board seems to be stuck between loud and very loud. Within those constraints, Tveit, Christopher, and Michele all manage to give it their all, so much so that the show, directed with feverish intensity by Michael Mayer, pretty much gives up the ghost and lets them take turns occupying center stage to blast out their respective numbers. Unfortunately, Hannah Cruz's vocal cords are stretched to shriek level at times; how the others avoid it is beyond me. The orchestra, lined up on risers that lead up to and then down from a bridge (on which Lea Michele has an apparent "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" moment), is quite excellent, and the score remains powerful in and of itself, so much so that it hardly seems to matter that some numbers have been reshuffled from the order in which they have been previously performed. In Act I, some interesting costume choices and choreographed moves for the strong ensemble are very reminiscent of those used in David Byrne's American Utopia, though neither costume designer Tom Broecker nor choreographer Lorin Latarro was involved in that production. Is it a total disaster? Of course not. The music is excellent, and as much as they are allowed to be, the performances are solid. It's unlikely that many in the current potential audience got to see the original Broadway production, and the status of Chess as a trophy might be good enough reason to attend. But, really, a good pair of headphones and a recording will serve you just as well.
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