STAGE REVIEW : ‘Chess’ Fails Credibility Test at Arts Center Revival

COSTA MESA —  The degree to which you may be able to swallow “Chess,” the musical, now at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, could have everything to do with the degree to which you are passionate about chess, the game. And even then, there are no guarantees.

To someone, like this writer, who is neutral on the subject, a musical called and about chess, is about as compelling as a Tiddlywinks contest. Can you imagine getting stirred up about something called “Golf,” the musical? Or “Tennis” set to music?

Perhaps you can. If so, “Chess” is for you. With an unpersuasive book by--of all people--playwright Richard Nelson (“Some Americans Abroad”) and to the accompaniment of undistinguished music by Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus, “Chess” works overtime at trying to drum up suspense where none, or nearly none, exists.

How does it do this? By tracing the mis- and other adventures of world champion chess players--one American, the other Soviet--and locking them in competition in Bangkok over (a) a chess game and (b) an American woman of Hungarian descent whose chess wiz father was imprisoned and killed by the Soviets. That pretty much covers all bases.

Throw in a little pop psychology and you have arrogant Freddie (Stephen Bogardus), the American champ, laying the chip on his shoulder at the feet of a father who walked out when Freddie was 13.

Throw in an unwanted wife for philandering Soviet champ Anatoly (John Herrera) and you have, well, the usual complications when he falls in love with Freddie’s assistant (and lover?) Florence (Carolee Carmello).

This Hungarian who has good reasons to distrust the Soviets also has healthy hormones to help overcome them, as she falls headlong for handsome Anatoly.

So far, so predictable. Mix in Freddie’s flunky, Walter (Gregory Jbara), who loves telling all to the media, and Anatoly’s KGB henchman Molokov (David Hurst), who loves making veiled threats and--checkmate!--you’re in hot borscht.

“Chess,” created in 1984, was PG--pre-glasnost. Its outmoded adversarial politics can’t be saved from derailment by stuck-on references to Gorby or perestroika or the Berlin youth dancing atop the wall. The glasnost -ification of “Chess” really doesn’t play. It might have mattered less if the plot were more believable in other respects, the characters less stereotypical, and events more compelling.

But despite fluid direction by Des McAnuff and decent production values (which include David Mitchell’s stylish scenic design, and good lighting and costumes by Ken Billington Susan Hilferty, respectively) “Chess” remains a trumped-up excuse for some ho-hum songs and dance numbers.

The lyrics by longtime Andrew Lloyd Webber associate Tim Rice are often forced and sometimes baffling when they’re not reminiscent of “Evita” (as in a song called “You and I”) or “Jesus Christ Superstar” (as in “I Know Him So Well”). This last is one of the show’s better numbers--a touching bar-room duet by Florence and Anatoly’s wife, Svetlana (played with gallantry by Barbara Walsh).

But it’s hardly enough. With the moderate exception of a “Bangkok at Night” sequence at the top of Act Two, the Peter Anastos choreography (augmented by Wayne Cilento) is of the uninspired Las Vegas casino bump-and-grind garden variety--and a terrible waste of that splendid dancer, Ken Ard, who plays the nondescript chess arbiter here, but was so memorable as Pluton in Graciela Daniele’s “Dangerous Games.”

The company brings its own grace and dignity to a piece that hardly commands either, and only in her final song Tuesday (“Someone Else’s Story”) did Carmello’s voice threaten to fail her. While “Chess” is much more soap opera than gamesmanship, at least its ending averts the maudlin. But it’s a little late by then. The game is over and there are no winners.

At 600 Town Center Drive in Costa Mesa, nightly through Sunday, 8 p.m., with matinees Saturday and Sunday at 2. Ends Sunday. $19-$40; (714) 556-ARTS.