REVIEW: ABBA and the Cold War: The History of Chess the Musical: Chapter 2

ABBA and the Cold War: The History of Chess the Musical

Chapter 2: The Exchange

NOTE: Our look at Chapter 1 can be found HERE.

In the aptly titled second chapter of this documentary, the genesis of Chess from concept recording to fully staged musical is presented, as "The Exchange" suggests,  as a multi-pronged detailing of triumph and tragedy, infighting and intrigue. In short, the mess that Chess became was probably more interesting than the end result.

Link to Chapter 2 HERE.

The start of this segment provides a lot of interesting material about two men behind the scenes, who today are the namesakes of two Broadway houses on 45th Street - Bernard Jacobs and Gerald Schoenfeld. At the very least it is nice to put a face to the name. By all accounts, these guys ran New York theater (and beyond), ruling with a cutthroat passion. Their other interest was in beating the other big name in town, The Nederlander Organization. With a tone that hovers somewhere between a 60 Minutes think piece and the he said/she said mentality of The National Enquirer, the film makers manage to keep this both informative and entertaining.

Though there is a preponderance of details that are momentarily interesting - Tim Rice gets left behind at a Long Island gas station after wondering off to see a Native American burial ground; Elaine Paige had her car stolen twice during rehearsals, etc etc., the piece gets bogged down, and I found myself looking at the clock more than once. It is when the film gets back to the process of musical making and the politics of the time that it really works.

A large chunk of this chapter details the rise and fall of Michael Bennett, the original director, both professionally and personally. Details of how A Chorus Line single-handedly saved the Shubert Organization from bankruptcy are balanced with the stinging betrayal of Bennett trying to buy a Nederlander theater (the Mark Hellinger). His drinking and drugging are pitted against his creative brilliance. I applaud the filmmakers for trying to paint a whole picture of the man; he was neither a saint nor sinner, not perfect, but still brilliant. 

Toward the end of this segment, there is a sharp look at the politics of journalism and how New York Times reporter Jeremy Gerard and his colleagues were forced to tell half-truths and flat out lies about AIDS, and particularly how Gerard is still anguished about how he had to tell Bennett's story.

The rest of Chapter 2 details the exchange from Bennett to Trevor Nunn, who inherited a piece he didn't believe in and how he hammered out his vision within the framework of Bennett's physical creation. No one involved was left unscathed. Dancers were made to stand on chess squares and not move. Whole pieces of scenery were scrapped. Major things like computer programming screens (184 of them!) and a light up chess board floor and extensive filmed sequences were left until the last minute. The 3 Knights were pretty much left out of the process.

And yet, after some tinkering (and by that I mean a complete rewrite - and tonal shift - of act 2) Chess was a hit in London in spite of itself. Nunn is portrayed as less a savior of the piece, though, when he used his leverage against the Shuberts when a New York transfer was inevitable. What a perfect chess analogy. You'll have to watch to see what he did.

The final moments are taken up with the tragic death of Michael Bennett and the impending doom of an ill-fated Broadway transfer.

Some cheesy visuals - a picture of Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly when Calvin Klein is mentioned, for one - and an increasingly labored overuse of chess (the game) as a metaphor are starting to wear thin, but I still recommend the film to this point. True fans of musical theater will lap this up, and students stand to learn some practical history. (There is life on Broadway before Hamilton!)

COMING SOON: A review of Chapter 3: The Endgame (but of course...)