Headscratchers / Chess (1984)

• Why does it not occur to Anatoly to win until Talking Chess?
  • Obviously, you've never met Korchnoi.
  • I think it does, but with all the stuff going on around him, Vigaand is just better than him. Until Anatoly calms down and focuses on actually playing the game, he's just not capable of winning
• In the Concept Album, what's the "news" that Freddie has for Florence at the end? It wasn't very clear.
  • The news is about her father, but it's left to the audience to decide if he's dead or alive.
• Why would Freddie be so complicit in being used by Walter and Molokov? He didn't take orders from Florence when she asked him to make nice with the press.
  • Probably a lot of it is his own basic arrogance. He's so sure he's in control of the game that he can't imagine himself as anybody else's pawn. (And he's also got a lot of built-up contempt and resentment against women in general, which would more than likely make him distrust Florence's advice on principle.)
  • Could he ever have a functioning relationship with her if he somehow managed to resolve his parental issues?
  • Depending on the version, this could show how much Freddie wants Florence back; he's even willing to let them drag him around for a shot at her. Besides, he switches camps later when he helps Anatoly to beat Vigand.
• Why did Richard Nelson turn Florence into such a wallflower?
  • Surely a savvy, worldly character is more compelling than a thinly veiled Damsel in Distress? Was he assuming Viewers Are Morons because "an (outwardly) self-confident woman like her wouldn't stand for that kind of crap"?
    • While This Troper is on the subject, is Freddie meant to be a self-centred Jerkass or is he just downright emotionally abusive?
    • The Kennedy Center Production gives Freddy a mental disorder that is meant to explain his self centeredness and paranoia. We see him taking medication to help him with it, and we hear his internal monologue where he berates his hot temper.
  • This Troper thinks that depends on whether you want the show to be a mass of morally grey Jerkasses or black-and-white. Anatoly isn't exactly free of Jerkass traits either.
• What do the Embassy underlings mean when they tell Anatoly "Don't forget the guys who cut your keys."?
  • "Cut your keys", as in "made your keys", as in let you into the country. They're the ones who do all the paperwork necessary for Anatoly defecting, and don't want this to go amiss.
• In The Deal (No Deal), Anatoly makes it perfectly clear that he isn't willing to intentionally lose the World Championship. So why, in Talking Chess, is Freddie trying to convince him to win?
  • There's two different ways I've heard that scene interpreted:
    • That Freddie is switching tactics and trying a new way to get Florence back. He's realized that Florence will never forgive Anatoly for choosing chess over her, and Freddie wants to facilitate that break-up (this also depends on how Florence is played when Walter tells her about her father; I've seen performances where she refuses to go along with him, and ones where she sinks, to the floor, beaten).
    • Or that Freddie is seriously sick of all the political machinations and drama surrounding the game. In act one, his posturing caused him to lose the match and lose Florence, and it rendered him little better than a puppet in act two. Freddie just wants to see the guy that beat him finally play some freaking chess.
  • And in case the question was why Anatoly is losing when he was so adamant about not throwing the match, the implication is that all the political stuff as well as the business of his marriage is doing its job and getting to him. After all, it's not until he makes up his mind to put everything else to one side (in spectacular fashion) and just focus on chess that the tide turns.
• Why is Freddie so offended by the reporters' implication that Florence is only his second because she's sleeping with him ("how come your second's a girl, lover boy?")? It seems like that would affect her reputation rather than his (Double Standards being what they are), and he hardly seems empathetic enough to care about that. Yet he has a more severe reaction to that than to any of the other unkind (if fully deserved) things the reporters say to/about him.
  • Maybe it's an implication that he's gay? Clearly he has issues about that topic from "Pity the Child".
  • Anatoly suggests this to Florence in the Concept Album during Quartet and she reacts defensively. Also, in the documentary that was made about the album while it was being recorded in Stockholm, Tim Rice seems to suggest that the relationship between Florence and Freddie was much more business-like than the form it's taken on in the various stage adaptations, so it doesn't seem too far-fetched to suggest that the initial plan was for Florence to be Freddie's beard. If you take the view that his actions in the show are the result of Internalised Homophobia, it could be a nod to Bobby Fischer's notorious reputation for anti-Semitism despite his own Jewish background.
• A question out of curiosity: Regarding the Color-Coded for Your Convenience entry, what color did the Arbiter wear?
  • In the Color-Coded for Your Convenience Royal Albert Hall concert, he wore a dark blue suit with a dark purple shirt and white gloves (so basically making him not really affiliated with either side). Most productions this troper has seen which use colour-coding had him dressed in blue (again, to mark him as separate from everyone else).
• In "Nobody's Side", Florence sings, "Never waste a hot afternoon". What does she mean?
  • She means to make the best of the good times when they come along, since they don't last.

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