"Grab your sleeping bags and bug spray, people. It's time for camp. Chess is back on Broadway after 37 years, as big and weird as ever, with as much late-'80s bombast as a Claude Montana runway show, as much cheese as a charcuterie board. Let's get the Five Ws out of the way so we can get to all that delicious dairy:"
"Who? Musical theater prom court Lea Michele, Aaron Tveit, and Nicholas Chistopher as the cult hit's absurdly brainy love triangle; Michael Mayer holding the bullhorn; and, of all people, Danny Strong behind the new book that's attempting to give some kind of psychological/historical coherency to the stadium-size music by ABBA's Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus and the barrage of histrionic lyrics by Tim Rice."
"The show starts off in 1979, as we are immediately informed by its super-caffeinated narrator, the Arbiter (Bryce Pinkham, having such a damn good time it feels like all his serious faces are on the edge of cracking into giggles). Despite this Arbiter's proclivity for lobbing soft 2025 political jokes into the audience, the story is still very much a "Cold War musical.""
The Broadway revival of Chess returns after 37 years as a deliberately campy, late-'80s–toned spectacle. The production stars Lea Michele, Aaron Tveit, and Nicholas Christopher as a brainy love triangle, with Michael Mayer directing and Bryce Pinkham narrating as the exuberant Arbiter. Danny Strong supplies a new book that seeks psychological and historical coherence for the large-scale music by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus and Tim Rice's histrionic lyrics. The staging features presentational design by David Rockwell and settings that include Merano and Bangkok. The piece foregrounds Cold War themes while leaning into theatrical excess and nostalgia.
Read at Vulture
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