HISTORICAL CHESS
Chesstories

"Chess", the Musical
A Story About a High-Stakes Game - and Chess, Too

Part 2

By Jan Newton
April 16, 2007

Synopsis of Part 1: The London production of "Chess" opened in London on May 14, 1986 and ran for three years, but the high tech spectacle never managed to make back its initial investment. The Broadway version of "Chess" was a flop. While "Phantom of the Opera" was picking up award after award, the American version of "Chess" lost $6 million and closed after only 68 performances. However, "Chess" has become a staple on the theatre circuit and is still being staged today (by both professional touring companies and in amateur productions), more than 20 years after it's London debut.(3) What accounts for its enduring popularity?

Timeless Storylines that Echo Historical Events

Even though "Chess" was conceived more than 20 years ago, the musical - and the story behind the story - continue to speak to us on multiple levels as a metaphor for both the game of chess itself and the game of life. These universal themes will never be dated. "Chess" is a metaphor for another metaphor - that of Shakespeare's "all the world's a stage... ."(4) The game of chess has also long stood as a metaphor for political and ideological conflict, and there is plenty of that in "Chess."

There are classic confrontations embodied in the chess players meeting for the world chess championship, and the personal confrontations are echoed in the political confrontations at the time; in the American version of the show, there is the Communist versus Capitalist ideological conflict embodied in "The Cold War." Though the terminology has changed over the years, the same players (the former Soviet Union, now the Russian Federation, versus America), continue the game today, albeit with less missiles pointing at each other (at the moment).(5)

The baby boomer generation in America well remember the "drills" held in primary school - duck, tuck and cover - in the event of an "atomic bomb" attack by the Russians. As a child I was taught in school how to construct a make-shift bomb shelter in the basement using wood, a kitchen table draped in plastic sheeting, and piling dirt against basement windows to block out the "radiation." Every responsible family had a year's supply of canned goods, paper "necessaries," bleach, a filter kit, a vent kit (to get "fresh" air into the basement during the six weeks you'd be down there after an atomic bomb attack), a transistor radio with spare batteries and bottled water in the basement, and the better-off families had underground "bomb shelters" in their backyards. There were public "fall-out shelters" marked with special yellow and black signs where people could go to be "safe," and receive soda crackers and water from sealed metal barrels. Decayed and faded specimens of these signs can still be seen today around the city where I live - primarily on stout-loking brick buildings.(6)

(Photo, note 7). And most chess fans alive today know about Bobby Fischer and what many consider the ultimate world chess championship match of all time - Fischer v. Spassky. I learned to play chess in 1970, when I was 18 years old; the game and I didn't take well to each other, and after the few games I played when I first learned, I don't specifically recall picking up a chess piece again until 1999 (that's another story). But I do remember Bobby Fischer and all the excitement surrounding his match with the evil Russian! In today's vernacular, Fischer was hot! He dressed well (nice suits and gorgeous ties), he was good looking, and there was this air about him - a sort of smoldering intensity coupled with insouciance - that was incredibly attractive. The man had IT. I didn't know diddly-squat about the game of chess other than how to move the pieces, and I was full-tilt into my party-girl phase in the early 70's, but I paid attention to Fischer-Spassky.

Chess was 'hot stuff" after Fischer's victory over Spassky. In 1972, the United States Chess Federation had 30,844 registered members; in 1973, that figure had jumped to 59,250, an astounding 92% increase in the year after Fischer's victory.

"Chess" was cast against this background - and these memories of those times, memories shared by probably a couple billion people alive today.

Then, there is the metaphor of personal struggle and metamorphosis embodied in the two male protagonists vying for the championship: the Russian player's quietly desperate battle against the suffocating monolith of the Soviet system and its chess establishment, and his yearning for freedom, and the egotistical and shallow American's struggle against - himself. In "Chess" the role of the bad guy was blurred. Who was the bad guy? The Russian romantic who ultimately turned his back on the woman who sacrificed everything for her love of him, or the self-centered, clueless American? This same kind of blurring was later successfully employed in the hit Tom Clancy novel and smash movie "The Hunt for Red October."

And, ah yes, there are the love stories - duos and triangles encompassing comedy and passion, tragedy and sacrifice. The love stories in "Chess" are timeless, they speak to audiences and will continue to do so far beyond the confines of temporary political and personal ideologies.

Synopsis of the Action from the Bell (American) Version

Strong Roles of the Women

About 51% of all babies born in the world are females. Despite the female gender being a slight majority in global population, only about 5% of women in the world today play chess - at least, this is the figure who are registered players; the actual percentage may be higher but the exact number is a great unknown because no formal "registration" or counting is involved in friends who play casual games face to face or over the internet. Particularly since the advent of the internet and the ability to play chess against an opponent without having to reveal one's gender, it is suspected - but cannot be confirmed - that the percentage of female players is now higher, but still nowhere near male participation rates. Indeed, for the United States, I have seen figures of female participation as low as 3%, which I find pathetic but does parallel my nation's basic indifference to this "nerdy" game since the triumphs of Bobby Fischer have faded from view. The average members of Generation X, Y and Z have no knowledge of Fischer. They're concerned with other things these days, and chess isn't part of the equation in their "world view," even though chess metaphors for current political and cultural dynamics at work in the world are rife in today's news stories.

In the early '80's in the United States, the Equal Rights Amendment had gone down to defeat after prolonged, heated and bitter political battles across the fifty states, but "women's lib" was in full throttle. I graduated from law school in 1984; my class was considered a "break-through" class because about one-quarter of us were women, and in my conservative midwestern city, we were echoing what was happening across the rest of the country. During this same time, "Phantom of the Opera" - which cast as heroine a helpless female who couldn't make up her mind between two equally-flawed "heroes" - was a smash hit on Broadway, and in my first job as a lawyer, I earned about one-third less than my male counterparts although I was supposedly a valuable commodity.

With this background in mind, "Chess" stands out because of its strong female leads. The women in "Chess" are presented in both traditional and non-traditional roles. There is Svetlana, the Russian wife who was left behind (traditional); and Florence, the Hungarian-American second to the American contender (non-traditional). It is Florence's role as a second that is astounding; in fact, I am not aware of any female player who has ever acted as second to a world chess champion contender. That, alone, is worthy of notice, because the fictional Florence's role has yet to be achieved by a real woman today!

When "Chess" premiered in the West End, Susan Polgar and Pia Cramling were breaking new ground in competing with highly-rated male chess players head to head, beating them across the board and ultimately earning international grandmaster ratings, the first women in the world to do so (Polgar earning her GM title in 1991 and Cramling earning her GM in 1992).(8) Did Rice know of their existence? Has anyone ever asked him the question? The drama of the Kasparov-Karpov matches was being played out during the final years of a dying Soviet empire, and the ghost of Bobby Fischer continued to reverberate through each championship cycle as fans and cynics alike wondered, would this be the time when Fischer resurfaced to test the mettle of the latest Russian pretenders? Indeed, Searching for Bobby Fischer: The Father of a Prodigy Observes the World of Chess by Fred Waitzkin was published in the United States in 1988, and was a hit movie in 1993.

As American contender Frederick (Freddie) Trumper's second, Florence would have had to know a hell of a lot about chess - tactics, strategy and theory; she would have had to be a player of skill and some repute, else she would have no use or value as a second. How ironic that Rice chose a female character to act as a second, given the low participation rate of females in chess; it is in this light that the lyrics in Florence's lament How Many Women - must be understood:

How Many Women (Broadway version):

[FLORENCE]
How many women would drive themselves crazy
By arguing over a game of chess?
Not very many -- the way things are going
There'll soon be one less!

[FREDDIE]
Don't believe you, sweetie pie --

[FLORENCE]
Listen, Freddie -- I too had ambitions
How did I get waylaid?
How can such a flower
A sensitive soul, a delicate child
Wind up as a nursemaid
Respectably set for the glittering prizes
Instead of which I landed you --

[FREDDIE]
You'll get your prizes!
I'm ninety percent of the way to the top of the heap.

[FLORENCE]
Thanks -- ten percent -- you got me cheap.

[FREDDIE]
No, no, Florence -- I mean we are ninety percent of the way --

[FLORENCE]
How many women -- articulate women
With something to shout about --
Spend their time
Playing a game in which silence is golden
And speaking a crime?(9)

More Lyrics from West End, Broadway and Concept Albums

Who Won?

When all is said and done, are there any winners in "Chess"? It's not Anatoly, the romantic Russian, who ended up returning to the very things from which he had attempted to flee; it isn't Freddie, the self-absorbed American, who lost the only love he was ever likely to have in his life. What about Svetlana? She got back the husband she coveted, a man who did not love her. And what happened to Florence? She was left behind when Anatoly went back to Russia. Perhaps Tim Rice could write a new musical about what happened to Florence afterwards...

FOOTNOTES:

(1) Different versions of the play and albums from these versions have been produced in England and the United States. Changes primarily center around the outcome of the championship games played in Act 2, the interpretations of the male characters and their motivations by actors on the American side of the Atlantic. In addition, in the David A. Bell (American) version of the play, the world championship is played between American Freddie and Russian Anatoly, instead of a match between Anatoly and Russian nemesis Leonid, "the Automaton". The female leads' roles were not substantially changed in the different versions of the play although Florence's nationality was changed from British to American for the Broadway version of the show.

(2) The link to the Vanity Fair story.

(3) Current news (as well as news dating back to October, 2002) about "Chess" productions from around the world can be found here.

(4) "All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages."

-- From As You Like It (II, vii, 139-143)

(5) As I was preparing this article for publication, it was reported on April 14, 2007 that former World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov had been arrested in Moscow during an anti-government demonstration. He was retained and released after paying a fine of $38 USD for the equivalent of a disorderly conduct ticket. The game continues...

(6) For those of you who don't remember basement and backyard bomb shelters and "fall-out" shelters, check out Wikipedia's entry on the subject (that's where I got the graphic of the "fall-out" shelter sign). It was a trip down memory lane for me.

(7) There are lots of wonderful photographs of Bobby Fischer on the internet today, and more seem to be added every month. I found this evocative photo at "Bobby Fischer: America's Disposable Hero."

(8) The international chess federation, FIDE, has awarded the international Grandmaster title to other female chessplayers who did not earn the title by meeting the requirements of obtaining three "GM norms" and an ELO rating of 2500. In some lists of female players who have earned the coveted international Grandmaster title, these players' names have an asterisk after them.

(9) If you would like to read about the current state of women chessplayers by a former U.S. Women's Chess Champion, I recommend Jennifer Shahade's book Chess Bitch.

For More Information on "Chess", the Musical:

Florence Vassy's Chess the Musical

Chess (at Imagi-nation)

Press clippings about "Chess" in London and on Broadway from London and New York newspapers - very interesting stuff (from icethesite)