Chess

It’s quite some time since I have seen a production of ‘Chess’ an extremely challenging musical requiring a vocally strong cast and E.M.T. certainly had this in abundance.

Set in the late 70’s the story depicting the competitiveness for the world chess championship between America and Russia combined with romance, deceit and political issues is an intriguing and demanding piece of musical theatre.

The Arbiters, Colin Richardson and Jennifer Good set a high standard at the opening of the show and kept the continuity of the plot going throughout the evening with great clarity.

An extremely animated company immediately convinced us of their fabulous choral skills in ‘Merano’ and sang with great gusto and feeling. Indeed the ensemble work in the entire production, whether in smaller groups or involving the whole company, was most impressive.

There were no weak links at all in the cast. Kenneth Pinkerton (Anatoly Sergievsky) the Russian chess player and Ali Floyd (Freddie Trumper) his American rival both portrayed their contrasting characters in a most assured and believable manner. Freddie’s ‘Pity the Child’ was extremely powerful both vocally and emotionally while Anatoly’s patriotic ‘Anthem’ at the end of Act 1 was resounding and spine tingling.

Josephine Heinemeier’s interpretation of the role of Florence, Freddie’s second and lover who falls in love with Anatoly, was sincere and also vocally very strong. Her duets ‘I Know Him So Well’ with Anatoly’s wife, well played by Lauren Gracie and ‘You and I’ with Anatoly himself were both moving and engaging.

Andrew McDade was a grand, scheming Alexander Molokov while Christopher Cameron was a convincing Walter de Courcey.

As well as being musically superb, the staging and choreography was also first class. The effective use of rostra and having the chess board at a high level worked well leaving space for some varied and lively choreography. Lighting too was used to great effect particularly silhouetting the balletic numbers during the games of chess.

This was a powerful production in every way performed by an accomplished cast whose singing was a real pleasure to listen to. The on stage band supported the cast well with this fabulous score and were unobtrusive to the action.

An excellent production of a very difficult show. I come to expect great things form E.M.T. and they never disappoint me.

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