Chess (Broadway)

I bought these tickets because Lea Michele was going to be out this week. My co-worker advised that so long as Nicholas Christopher is there, it's worth seeing. And with just our luck, forty minutes before curtain mom got an email saying he would be out for both Wednesday performances. We didn't see that email, and when Anatoly first comes on stage, from the balcony I squinted real hard and concluded that was not Christopher on stage. Too late for a refund at that point. The understudies did valiantly but Christopher has this incredible baritone that we missed out on. Waiting for a cast recording to hear him sing Anthem. It looks like all the television appearances they've done did not include arguably the best, most famous song. 

The re-write of the book for this production was actually pretty decent. The jokes don't land, and in fact are really cringey trying to make contemporary jokes about our current politics. The Arbbiter's fourth-wall breaking was weird. But I liked the recontextualization of the show amidst SALT II negotiations and Able Archer exercises. I thought that was actually quite clever, giving the Cold War context more heft and meaning. And it was actually believable. The Cold War is a game of chess, and chess is a game within the game. And so the CIA and KGB are really pulling the strings behind the scenes to drive macro outcomes more important than this championship, even though there are personal stakes for our heroes with life and love on the line. 

The show is almost completely lacking in set. But the lighting is pretty good. It also suffers a bit with The Queen's Gambit problem, which is that chess is not that interesting. Here, they don't even attempt to show us the chess board. They sing about chess, speaking their moves aloud with no board to follow. The costumes are kind of bland, like something out of American Utopia or they're dressed like schoolkids from Matilda. And for much of the show, they sit on stage for no particular reason. The band on stage is fun! 

Moulin Rouge! (Broadway)

I think Moulin Rouge the stage musical is fine, not quite as good as the movie. What makes the movie so special is its drug-addled frenetic editing, which doesn't really translate to the stage. The medleys are still there, cutting together one line here, one line there--that still works and has a disorienting effect. They updated the songs, and it's all the better for it. I think the best scene musically is Crazy/Rolling in the Deep cause who does heartbreak better than Adele? I don't love jukebox musicals in general but recognizable songs are fun. I think where the play suffers is in the plot, which is pretty thin and basically abandoned at the end. I read the synopsis online afterwards and I don't know if I missed something or if it was implied through song-and-dance or if they flat out didn't finish the plot but we're sort of left hanging. The ending actually does a bit of a Mamma Mia finale jubilantly singing the hits--so much for a tragic ending. The theater is decked out in red lights, a rotating windmill and a giant elephant on the wings. Unfortunately, the scenes "in" the elephant aren't actually in an elephant. I think that was a missed opportunity. The set in the movie (including the miniatures) are so theatrically staged that I think this sort of disappoints. Overall, maybe the production isn't sexy enough? Isn't seedy enough? It doesn't have the edge of Cabaret for instance; it's more sanitized for family-friendly entertainment. In the movie there are copious scenes in which Satine and Christian steal away, but there are just a couple in the abbreviated plot points. I thought Natalie Mendoza was a pretty good Satine, taking over from Karen Olivo. I do not remember her being in Annette at all. Caught Aaron Tveit in his final week. He won a Tony for this role but with the caveat that there were no other nominees.