Chess is Exactly What You'd Expect
It’s a doomed effort, the kind of production that makes you feel bad for those putting it on. Not because they are doing badly, but because the Sisyphian nature of their task is so tragically clear.
The art of a good overture feels like a dying one in 2026, so at least in that respect, Chess was refreshing. Its overture is a great piece of music—for decades, supporters of this troubled work have lauded the score as its strongest element—-and it left me genuinely excited for the piece of theatre I was about to see, in spite of what I already knew.
Alas, the excitement was short lived.
This production of Chess wasted no time in living up to its well-earned reputation: the music is great, but the book is still an absolute mess, with Danny Strong’s latest rewrite fixing little.
The first song following the overture tells the audience exactly what’s in store: two-plus hours of over-stressed diction and excessive exposition (my two least favorite things in the musical theatre genre). As to the diction, the ensemble bites off each ending “T” or “S” in that distinctively “Musical Theatre” way, but half the words are otherwise so muddled that they’re indecipherable. As to the exposition, it’s easier to count the moments that are not brazenly expositional.
Much of this unenviable exposition falls to The Arbiter/Narrator (Bryce Pinkham). Much of the part had me rolling my eyes—it’s hammy and annoyingly self-referential—but Pinkham deserves his flowers. He’s burdened with the bulk of a notoriously terrible book, and he makes a truly valiant effort to transmute the dungheap he is given into gold. It’s an impossible task, but he makes it a less painful experience and earns a few genuine laughs along the way. He seems to be the only one on stage—character or performer—who understands this is a deeply silly show.
Other than the fact that they take themselves too seriously, it’s hard to find much issue with the performances of the leads, who are impressive vocally. Lea Michele, while perhaps a bit obvious in her Tony-chasing, is exceptional. Aaron Tveit emphatically proves the doubters (who have questioned whether he can sing a true rock score) wrong. Nicholas Christopher, despite broad critical acclaim, is in my opinion the weakest of the three, and even still he plastered me to my seat with the sheer power of his voice more than once.
The technical side of things is equally unobjectionable. David Rockwell (Scenic Design) and Tom Broecker (Costume Design) have crafted a cohesive visual language for the show that helps tie things together. The Cold War-era suits, the simple colors, the minimal, multi-layered set—it all works! Particularly fun are the press conference scenes, with live camera feeds projecting the actors' faces onto large screens, superimposed with media chyrons—a well executed piece of multi-media staging.
It’s great to see an entire cast and crew operating at the top of their game, all rowing in the same direction. But in this case, the boat is stuck on dry land. Even strong music, signing, and dancing, with effective sets and costumes—the works!—cannot overcome the piss-poor writing of Chess. It’s a doomed effort, the kind of production that makes you feel bad for those putting it on. Not because they are doing badly, but because the Sisyphian nature of their task is so tragically clear.
It’s a shame, really. Chess could be a phenomenal piece of theatre. All we have to do is change out all the words…again.