Print

Email story

Comment

Letter to the editor

Column

A game of love and intrigue

Richey Suncoast Theatre's director undertakes the challenge of staging Chess.

By BARBARA L. FREDRICKSEN, Arts and Entertainment
Published January 4, 2008

A flashback scene features a young Florence and her father (Tim Taylor and Tiffani Cruz) around a chess board during the Russian invasion of Hungary.
	[Mike Carlson]

ADVERTISEMENT [Mike Carlson] Paul Gibson portrays champion Anatoly Sergievsky, the Russian opponent of Freddie Trumper.

The Cold War musical Chess has had almost as many versions as there are moves in a chess game.

It's the story of a brash young American chess player's board duel with an earnest Russian chess champion in the early 1980s, with the characters' personalities loosely based on real chess players Bobby Fischerand Victor Korchnoi.

Complicating the match is the American's assistant, a beautiful young Hungarian-born American, who falls in love with the Russian midway through the tourney and inadvertently becomes a pawn in the conflict between her adopted country and the Russians.

The musical opera started out in 1984 as a concept album with lyrics by Tim Rice (Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar) and music by former ABBA (Dancing Queen) members Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson (Mama Mia). It was turned into a multimedia stage show in London in 1986 and then totally rewritten and reconceived as a straightforward book showon Broadway in 1988.

Since then, it has had multiple incarnations, including a one-night benefit for the Actors' Fund in 2003 starring Josh Groban that combined several versions.

Richey Suncoast Theatre will open the Broadway version of Chess on Thursday and continue it for the following three weekends.

The musical has been called "an angry, difficult, demanding and rewarding show" by Time magazine and "tuneful and expertly arranged" by the New York Daily News.

Richey Suncoast director Charlie Skelton knew it would be a challenge for his cast and crew from the start. He cast three of the area's most talented and reliable performers, as well as one newcomer, in the top roles.

Playing the Russian Anatoly Sergievsky is Paul Gibson, who won kudos as Don Quixote in the Richey Suncoast season opener, Man of La Mancha. His assistant, Molokov, is played by Jim Poe, who won a Tommy Award as "Favorite Actor in a Musical" for his portrayal of Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof in the 2006-07 season and was most recently seen as the sinister janitor in the mystery-thriller,The Bad Seed.

Heather Graves (Marian in The Music Man) plays Florence, who had fled to America from her native Hungary in 1956 when the Soviets squelched an uprising and is now playing a pivotal role in the chess competition and its dangerouspolitical intrigues.

Richey Suncoast newcomer Robert M. Tilley plays the brash young American chess champ Freddie Trumper, who revels in the crowd's attention, but stomps out of the match, dramatically accusing the Russian of cheating, which puts everyone involved in peril.

Critics have said that Chess has one of the best rock scores ever produced for theater, with One Night in Bangkok reaching No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States and I Know Him So Well holding the No. 1 spot on the United Kingdom singles charts for four weeks in 1985.

If you go

The musical 'Chess'

Where: Richey Suncoast Theatre, 6237 Grand Blvd., New Port Richey.

When: Thursday, Jan. 11-13; Jan. 18-20 and Jan. 25-27. Shows are at 8 p.m., except Sundays at 2:30 p.m.

Tickets: $15. Box office is open 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays and an hour before each show. Call (727) 842-6777.

[Last modified January 3, 2008, 20:57:36]