Why'd "Chess" flop on Bway?

[Leadingplayer]

Posted: 7/19/12 at 4:03am

It ran 3 years in London and only a few months here. No offense to Judy Kuhn (who sounds great) but did they approach other star names first? Lupone? Buckley? Bernadette?

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 7/19/12 at 4:18am

Don't think she can be blamed. Since Nunn apparently inherited the designs and a lot of the much more stylized London production from Michael Bennett, before he got too sick to do it, I've heard he never felt it was his own. For Broadway Nunn went for a much more literal approach, changed it from being through-sung to having a very political libretto by Richard Nelson, changed much of the story, etc.

I like the CD (though I admit I listen to the original concept album more), but I admit photos of the production look pretty dreary. On the other hand, I can find very few photos and no clips of the London production--does anyone know of any? (I know about the promo videos done for it).

Chess has a story that I'm not sure will ever really work--I think it works best when it is done in a very stylized (and yes, through-sung) fashion. It would have been fascinating to see what Bennett would have done with it.

Here's the 8 minute press reel for the Broadway production (which is so dark, you really get no sense of it even having a set--again a marked difference to the apparent spectacle in the London)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ggPca7JO_c&feature=related

[rosscoe(au)]

Posted: 7/19/12 at 4:49am

The Australian production was set in a lobby and other areas of a five star hotel in Bangkok.

I would love to have seen what Bennett would have done with this, still on of my favorite scores and shows.

[chrisampm2]

Posted: 7/19/12 at 4:58am

It was a slog. Carroll was fantastic but Kuhn, though sympathetic and in beautiful voice, didn't deliver the star performance that was needed. And Casnoff was off-putting. It felt endless.

[MusicalBoy]

Posted: 7/19/12 at 5:04am

There was a documentary about musical theatre on which, if I recall correctly, Benny and Bjorn noted that the Berlin wall came down and nobody wanted to see a musical about the cold war.

[Leadingplayer]

Posted: 7/19/12 at 5:07am

Elaine Paige STILL wasn't a big enough star to come to the US after Cats and Evita?

[emlodik]

Posted: 7/19/12 at 5:16am

Anyone see the recent Arvada Center production in Arvada? It was fantastic and very unique. They essentially took the London libretto, but added bits and pieces of American and Australian versions, so Svetlana is introduced much earlier in Act I and gets to sing "Someone Else's Story," while Florence meets the old man posing as her father. I felt it was the best version of the show, too bad my audio recorder crashed and now it's nothing but a distant memory...

[BroadwayFan12]

Posted: 7/19/12 at 5:40am

Elaine Paige wasn't given permission from Equity to come here.

[Jon]

Posted: 7/19/12 at 6:44am

I think it's telling that in the liner notes for the Broadway cast recording, there's a disclaimer saying that some of the lyrics were rewritten without Tim Rice's approval.

[tazber]

Posted: 7/19/12 at 7:34am

The answer lies within this link

[South Fl Marc]

Posted: 7/19/12 at 7:47am

"but Kuhn, though sympathetic and in beautiful voice, didn't deliver the star performance that was needed."


I so disagree with that. I thought Judy Kuhn and David Caroll (God, I miss David SO Much!) were the best things in the show.

On top of all the other reasons, they were also done in by their set. I talked to one of the stage hands who worked the show and he said it was the poorest designed show he had ever worked. The set kept breaking and had to be fixed nightly. This added to the weekly cost and it became impossible for the show to break even.

[WOSQ]

Posted: 7/19/12 at 9:57am

The casting had little-to-no effect on the Chess' reception. The cast and the score were the only things uniformly well-received in the NY production.

The show was long. The first few previews ran close to 4 hours. By the time I saw toward the end of that first week they had gotten it down to 3 1/2 hours. The intermission alone that first week lasted from 20-40 minutes. This launched the show to lousy word of mouth.

The production was ugly. One of the least attractive big budget shows I have ever seen. Also it is said that it was so techically complicated that the design locked in the running order of scenes. Nothing could be cut, combined or moved.

Badly staged. This is the show that proved Trevor Nunn was not god.

Dull. A big Broadway musical about...chess? Forget the symbolism and analogies. Chess? C'mon.

All of this and then there was a sad ending. The audience went out into the (late) night asking, "Why would I want my friends to see this?"

Then how would you sell it?

I think Chess belongs on the list of shows called 'heartbreakers'. It is just never going to work.

[artscallion]

Posted: 7/19/12 at 10:08am

It failed because it's flat. While it contains many good songs, they are all power ballads, one after the other, after the other. A relentless succession of power ballads makes a Journey album, not an engaging Broadway show.

As to why it succeeded in London...End of the Rainbow, Elena Roger, blood pudding, this...clearly they appreciate different things.

[newintown]

Posted: 7/19/12 at 10:18am

I think it failed because it's humorless, witless, solemn, pretentious, stupid, and boring.

But a lot of people like those songs, so they'll keep trying to make a show out of them. But I bet they'll never find a way to attach those tunes to a satisfying book.

Updated On: 7/19/12 at 10:18 AM

[Wee Thomas2]

Posted: 7/19/12 at 10:22am

Nobody wants to see a musical written by the people behind Abba.

Abba?

Come on, now.

[PattiLover]

Posted: 7/19/12 at 10:35am

"As to why it succeeded in London...End of the Rainbow, Elena Roger, blood pudding, this...clearly they appreciate different things."

LOL!

[doodlenyc]

Posted: 7/19/12 at 10:50am

Kuhn and Carroll were great. That was it. Casnoff was as screechy as he was in Shogun. It was ugly and poorly staged. Casnoff's one chance to fill out his character with "Pity the Child" was staged with his back to the audience as he was being interviewed.

The story was worse than the already problematic original. There seemed to be an attempt to make it more palatable for the American audience, and it failed.

[tazber]

Posted: 7/19/12 at 12:16pm

As I said in the other thread: it works on record but doesn't translate well to a live production.

[Proper Villain]

Posted: 7/19/12 at 12:33pm

The major Chess flaw has always been the utterly nonsensical concept and storyline (however drawn from "real" events). The music is really the only thing it had going for it.

The Cold War was waining, but Benny & Bjorn should note that the wall came down in '89, so they need to find another culprit. Possibly that '88 was the season of "Into The Woods" and "Phantom of the Opera".

[PalJoey]

Posted: 7/19/12 at 12:45pm

David Carroll's performance had all the fierceness and flash that the whole production needed. His "Anthem" was almost as powerful a moment in the show as Jennifer Holiday's "And I'm Telling You" was in Dreamgirls.

Trevor Nunn gave the show a veneer of "importance," but since (as the authors pointed out) the Cold War seemed to have suddenly ended, the whole piece suddenly lost any relevancy, and that importance Trevor Nunn had directed into it just seemed portentous and overdone.

Like many others, I still feel that if AIDS had not felled Michael Bennett, he would have made Chess into a staging and lighting and performing miracle, just like Dreamgirls was, and it would have worked, despite the tearing down of the Berlin Wall and woodenness of some of the writing.

And as I mentioned in the Bette Midler Gypsy thread about those years of the AIDS crisis, each time one of these incredibly talented artists died from AIDS--and their deaths were only whispered and spoken of with shame and discomfort--it was a horrifying reminder that no one seemed to care, because it seemed like only gay men and black people dying.

And I've always wondered not only what Chess would have been like if Michael Bennett had not died, but also what he would have done next to top it.

And then next after that. And after that and after that and...

Updated On: 7/19/12 at 12:45 PM

[latitudex1]

Posted: 7/19/12 at 12:57pm

“The story was worse than the already problematic original. There seemed to be an attempt to make it more palatable for the American audience, and it failed.”

The American story (the ending at least) is truer to the real-life events Chess is based on. Doesn't make it better of course.

[wiggum2]

Posted: 7/19/12 at 1:00pm

Why would equity not Elaine come over?

[Auggie27]

Posted: 7/19/12 at 1:01pm

All PJ sentiments seconded. Carroll's vocals were exquisite, and his performance was the centerpiece of the production. Nelson's (added, not in London) script sorted out the story's stakes skillfully enough, but explicating the cold war at such a late date didn't feel very immediate. Sometimes, it just got in the way. I was happy it went into the Imperial, and if memory serves, Nunn seemed to determine to find intimacy in the central triangle. That edition added "Someone Else's Story," a favorite of mine, so Kuhn's lovely rendition always makes remember the production and wonder what might've been with a bolder concept (and Bennett).

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 7/19/12 at 1:28pm

There was a documentary about musical theatre on which, if I recall correctly, Benny and Bjorn noted that the Berlin wall came down and nobody wanted to see a musical about the cold war.

Chess ran on Broadway April-June 1988. The wall didn't come down until November 1989. The political events leading up to the reunification started in the summer of 1989, so either Benny and Björn were confused or discussing another production.

Updated On: 7/19/12 at 01:28 PM

[Bettyboy72]

Posted: 7/19/12 at 1:50pm

Because it sucked. I hate that show.

Basically, if it runs long in London, it flops here. And vice versa.