A few months ago, I wrote at length about the overzealous absurdity of Starlight Express: a big-budgeted musical on roller-skates that found Andrew Lloyd Webber fusing so many of his interests into a dated, homoerotic musical for teenage boys. There’s plenty that I love about it, but that’s in large part because I admire Webber’s desire to “go there,” to push boundaries and make theater into this gauche tapestry that is for everyone. After all, he remains one of the most successful composers in musical theater history. Who would dare doubt him? His emotions are big and the experience of watching his shows relies on our impulses for a good spectacle.
But then again, to discuss his career without mentioning Tim Rice is to ignore a crucial part of his career. Together they made an impeccable partnership, producing shows like Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita that continue to endear to this day. I would go so far as to argue that Evita is one of the best shows ever composed. There’s so much going on with the score, the lyrics holding another level of wit and humanity that make you admire the two lunatics who did the unthinkable by first releasing them as concept albums. Before there was an ounce of stage direction, they had a whole show ready to go. I love this detail because it makes you understand what is essential to the narrative before compensating with needless stage work.
So, how does such a phenomenal partnership fade? How does one continue to produce shows that may never close while the other produces a flop like Chess? What I find genius is to go to the core of this project’s existence. For years, Rice wanted to make this elaborate musical about The Cold War, waiting for the right concept to appear. When he approached Webber with the idea, he was already moving on to Cats. Yes, the show that Webber once told Hal Prince as being, quite simply “a show about cats.” Webber was clearly the entertainer in the group while Rice brought insight into shows like Evita. Together, they found the perfect balance. Separately, it was like choosing between college and the circus.
But guys, let me just say that there’s no audacity like a college student’s audacity. Rice kept searching until he landed on the idea to make a musical inspired by a chess match between Bobby Fischer and several Russian grandmasters. It was a form of competition that could be made into something theatrical, and his collaborators would strike most people as unexpected: Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus. In simpler terms, they’re the male counterparts of ABBA who began their journey into theater, wanting to branch out from their success as Sweden’s greatest pop band.
That isn’t to say that they totally escape the sound. If anything, Rice served as a moderator for artists like Andersson and Ulvaeus. Chess is one of the most shamelessly big 80s musicals of all time. Sure, you can argue Webber made more successful shows, but the big emotions on display here create songs that felt reminiscent of Peter Gabriel and Bonnie Tyler. The guitar’s so big and ego-stroking that it may as well have been played by Eddie Van Halen. Everything about this feels designed like a narrative-driven prog-rock show, playing out with set pieces more awe-inspiring than the last. The harmonies are so big that I can imagine, at its best, songs like “The Arbiter” drive audiences to tears from how beautiful it all is. Say what you will about ABBA, but the duo was on another level with this one.
It’s almost a shame that this musical bombed, only playing two weeks originally on Broadway because its place in history feels cursed. When people talk about “ABBA musical,” they will not even think about Chess. They won’t think of how it spawned hits like “One Night in Bangkok” and “I Know Him So Well” or those fantastic music videos that have this wonderful balance of boxed cinematography opposite constant chessboard imagery. While you can feel disappointed that certain searches are more likely to pull up Chess Records content, even that feels better than acknowledging that “ABBA musical” brings up Mama Mia!
I’m not shaming Mama Mia! fans. It’s just that comparing it to Chess feels so underwhelming that a jukebox musical with some hokey love story has endeared more than this effortful allegory about The United States’ ongoing struggles with Russia. The marketing was phenomenal. It had great numbers by Murray Head and Elaine Page, and the concept album doesn’t take long to understand why theater kids have continued to defend this work. It’s maybe the most ambitious thing that Rice has ever been associated with. For all of its self-indulgence, it’s hard to not feel like everything that follows is a spiritual experience.
It comes in the openers “The Story of Chess” and “Merano.” The tone is clashing right away from this Communist Russia sound, with marches and swirling melodies creating grandeur, building a sonic understanding of what Russia represents. These numbers are also much more elaborate, going sometimes for 9 or 10 minutes, allowing the listener to be immersed not only in the lyrical ballet but in the atmosphere of the melodies. By the time that the American perspective shows up, it’s loud, boisterous, and shifts from orchestral to something with synthesizers, boisterous guitars, and rich emotion. If you had to describe the sound from here, it’s The U.S. vs. The U.S.S.R., and everything is only going to continue blending into something towering over the listener, finding times for everything from gut-wrenching ballads to orchestral passages about playing chess, and the disaffected charm of whatever “One Night in Bangkok” is going for.
Over 94 minutes, the story hits all of the great melodrama that you’d expect and, more importantly, set up Andersson and Ulvaeus as composers who should’ve had a much greater career. To my understanding, they didn’t have too many shows after this, which is a shame. They have an affection for earnestness, managing to make every song sound like ABBA-meets-Broadway without it being an insult. I promise you that the harmonies alone on this album are some of the best I’ve ever heard in a musical. You can’t believe that anyone would sincerely make a musical this pompous about international chess tournaments. It’s just baffling.
But then again, it’s the perfect example of why you could see Rice as being collegiate. It’s a high-brow concept presented into something accessible. Whereas Webber requires you to buy into the gimmick, Rice is here selling you on the themes. It’s a story of two countries diametrically opposed, trying to solve their problems through something that seems straightforward. There’s a love triangle, and every song pops. You understand how two of these songs became chart-toppers. In a time where most Broadway shows were struggling to have one or two hits, Chess felt perfectly designed to bank off of popular music… while also selling a whole lot of chessboards.
So, why was this a failure?
Here’s something to keep in mind. It’s only a failure in the sense that it keeps not connecting with Broadway audiences. In a survey by BBC Radio 2, it was seventh on the audience-voted “Number One Essential Musicals,” coming between Evita and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. There continues to be countless covers of songs like “I Knew Him So Well,” and Murray Head became a One-Hit Wonder. There are things that have kept Chess in the zeitgeist in all but name. Unlike even Webber’s lesser work (notably Starlight Express), there isn’t this weird fascination that has kept it alive, doing small theater productions, using whole stadiums built to put on their shows, or even podcasts dedicated to its crazy history. That’s the joy of being a circus. You can’t help but look at the trapeze artist, hoping he doesn’t fall.
This is odd because brief research has suggested that Chess was designed to be one of the biggest shows of its time. It was a blockbuster, given a budget of $12 million and a series of ideas that sound totally awesome on paper. There’s tilting floors, banks of television monitors, commentary from chess master William Harston, and other things. The floor would be designed like a chessboard, and everything would be, ahem, “big.” It had the perfect hook… if they could make ANY of that work.
To be honest, I haven’t studied performance videos enough to know what the original final product looked like. I am aware that there is a Swedish version of the final show floating around YouTube. Even then, things quickly revealed why they needed to be retooled. The original version ran five hours due to consistent technical difficulties. It was cut down to three hours, but even then there were ways to run the show smoother. Mind you, not everyone involved with the concept album was there for the stage version that had quite the task of making a harmoniously rich production actually look plausible onstage.
I suppose on some level I became intrigued by this show following a conversation between Joe Reid and Chris Feil on This Had Oscar Buzz, claiming that it was one of the best scores but rarely was given the stage treatment it deserved. There would be plot rewrites at every stage, though I personally doubt any changes could match how excited I get listening to the concept album. It is so full of ideas that it’s a shame that a film version doesn’t exist. Only in the realm of cinema can this be given the scope it deserves. Also, it may explain why the show failed to receive many Tony Award nominations (two for acting) and lost a Grammy to Into the Woods (it was also up against Webber's The Phantom of the Opera). It was a bomb caused by the trio’s own hubris, and I remember reading how jaded Rice became of the theater after his perceived best work got laughed out of town.
Still, I can’t imagine any version matching the concept album because it had limitless potential. Also, I don’t know that anyone captures the disaffected nature of American tourism quite like Murray Head, managing to sound flat without being monotone. There’s so much personality in the performers, and I wonder where this ends up if they never got the chance to adapt it to the stage. Sure, it would be rare, but maybe it would be loved more, not continually associated with failure when its music is anything but.
Even then, I hear “Anthem” or “The Arbiter” and imagine what would happen IF the stage version was perfect, if Rice had this masterpiece to challenge Webber’s campier shows. It was clear that intellectually they were gearing for different paths. In a perfect world, Rice would continue to make these complex shows with artists committed to grandeur and thought. Still, it’s telling that Cats keeps going while Chess is lucky to get revivals every few decades. I’m sure its story is more intriguing and fulfilling than anything in Starlight Express, and yet that continues to endure thanks to Germany’s weird infatuation.
This is a show that I wish was still around because I feel like, in a perfect world, it’s more than Cold War paranoia. It’s a spectacle that serves as a testimony to great 80s operatics, doing some ambitious things with the score that most musicals I’ve encountered would be too sheepish to achieve. Maybe it’s because they’re more logical, knowing where their limits are. It’s the downside of making a concept record and then translating. With shows like Evita, it’s a practical fit. For Chess, it’s a nightmare.
I’m aware that Rice has continued to work on stage and screen. I’m not suggesting that this is the end of the line. However, as one of his first major diversions from Webber, it’s amazing to see that both had failures that spoke deeply of what they brought to their brief time together. Also, it makes me wish so much that there was a half-dozen other musicals by Andersson and Ulvaeus to pull from because they sound like fascinating musicians, wanting to be more than goofy pop guys. It’s sad that Mama Mia! permanently branded them that way, but hey… hopefully it’s a gateway for some to recognize how charismatic and diverse their portfolio really goes.
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