NYC EOY 2025 (part five)

Bryce Pinkham

Whether or not you enjoy or approve of this new book for the musical Chess, it all comes down to the Arbiter.

Our last full day in New York, we had breakfast in, a few items from the bodega around the corner and a casual lie-in in preparation for an entire day to be spent out. Has our President ever visited a bodega? I think he would have a nervous attack. He hates normal people, he wouldn’t know what he was looking at.

We spent a few hours in the Met. As many times as I have visited, there are still galleries I have never experienced, and of course, there are always new exhibits. We lingered in the American Wing, specifically among the Native American works. I was exposed to George Morrison in a show focusing on the midcentury work he created in NYC.

To add atmosphere, they were playing "So What" by Miles Davis on a loop. I know the song is over nine minutes long, but some of us spend more time than that in one exhibit, especially when they are high. I don’t know why they didn’t just play all of Kind of Blue, cats think it’s a hep side.

"Construction in Fantasy"
George Morrison, 1953

The day was cold, real cold. We avoided taxis the entire day, including a walk across Central Park to a subway station which was more of a march than a stroll. We took a pilgrimage to the Drama Book Shop, my first to this “new” location on 39th Street, where I picked up a recently revised edition of Born With Teeth by Liz Duffy Adams and a signed copy of Plague Play by Erin Proctor.

I am old enough to be familiar with two previous incarnations, including the second floor space on 48th Street, which I recall being a bit cramped and tatty. Nothing like this spacious and bustling locale with its cafe and seating.

Dinner was something of a misstep, at a rooftop spot in Times Square. I am sure that during the spring and fall it’s lovely, but even enclosed for the season it was fucking freezing. Finally: Chess.

Drama Book Shop

The last time we attended a Broadway musical, it was in 2023 for the highly successful revival of Merrily We Roll Along. And like Chess, the original Broadway production was a flop. Merrily director Maria Friedman provided her revival a focus to the story audiences had found difficult to follow due to its multi-year sequence of events which are told in reverse-chronological order. From the jump, she made it clear the play is all about the character of Franklin Shepard (Jonathan Groff) – we were to keep our eye on him. The tale was much clearer to understand, and we could enjoy the music and the performances.

With a new book for Chess, written by Danny Strong (co-creator of TV shows Dopesick and Empire) they have attempted to provide context to a Cold War era story which, by the Broadway run in 1988, was already at an apparent conclusion.

A narrator, who came as a surprise fourth lead of the production, played with hilarious comic timing by Bryce Pinkham, has been expanded to educate younger members of the audience – those forty and under, fans of Tveit and Michele from their apparent volume the night we attended – what the Cold War was, what was at stake, and what any of this might have to do with an international chess competition.

Nicholas Christopher

When a person is depicted wearing a mask in a TV show or movie or in a play, do we need to explain why they are? No, because we all understand what year it is. And so it was that forty years ago, if there was any competition between an American and a Soviet, everyone understood that it had additional weight, or baggage, if you will. I would be curious to know how someone who didn’t live through that era receive the news that the results of the act one match in Merano had a direct effect on the defeat of President Carter, or that the act two match in Bangkok played out against the backdrop of actual NATO war games in 1983 that almost started World War III.

Pinkham also steps into the story as the Arbiter, which is a referee for a chess match. The Arbiter has one of my favorite songs in the entire original recording, which is unfortunately there broken up into a longer piece called “Opening Ceremony.” A more complete version, called “The Arbiter” and sung by Björn Skifs, was released as a single, with an additional verse. Pinkham has been granted the uninterrupted, complete version as a star turn and makes a meal of it. If the original cast recording was this song alone I’d buy it.

What is most compelling, the reason the show is worth attending, are the epic solo turns by each of the three stars. I have heard of Aaron Tveit, but he’s not someone I have had the occasion to pay attention to. The several appearances he has made promoting the show on various morning or late night night shows, where he has invariably performed “One Night in Bangkok” did not impress, but through no fault of his own. It’s not a song which compliments an actual singer. It’s dated. Kinda cringey.

AND YET. In context, as part of the story, the act two opener, when we have already gotten to know who this guy is, and where he is, that he is a defeated American chess champion who is now a talking head for the game, in performance he was sexy, and hilarious, and big fun!

Aaron Tveit

But that’s not the best of his work here. In its original incarnation, the American and the Russian were types. Remember, this was a story told by two Swedes and a Brit, folks who were squeezed between two dangerous, dysfunctional opposites. The American, named Freddie Trumper (the Arbiter is quick to remind us this show was written in 1984) was originally merely an asshole, and unfortunately queer-coded. Tveit’s Freddie, we are told, is bipolar, and requires medication to help him function. His childhood trauma, reflected in the song “Pity the Child,” is achingly rendered by Tveit. When I was a teenager, I felt this song was a commentary on how Americans whine about how unfair the world is and blame our failings on our parents. As an adult, I have much more empathy for this character.

And that’s important to a modern audience, because the original basically told us this guy is the way he is because he is American, and that guy is the way he is because he is Russian. We are told the Russian, Anatoly Sergievsky, was taken from his parents when he was a child, that he was programmed to be a chess champion. But in his performance, the way he stands and walks and speaks, Christopher suggests he is also neurodivergent. Are these reasons or excuses for the men of Chess to behave the way they do?

Regardless, I had seen Nicholas Christopher bring down the house once in my life, now I’ve seen him do it not one more time, but two more times. He may be the least well-known of the three leads, but every audience who sees this leaves having seen him as a co-equal, or even the star. He crushes the act one closer, “Anthem,” and later received a mid-song ovation during “Endgame.”

Lea Michele

If Lea Michele suffers in comparison to these two performances, it is through no fault of her own. The character of Florence, the paramour of first Freddie and then Anatoly is problematic. They show her to be a brilliant chess strategist, her character exists to be a foil for the men. Her own story, that she was a Hungarian refugee as a child during the Budapest Uprising of 1956, and left in limbo as to the fate of her missing father – was he a dissident or a Soviet spy? – has always felt tacked on to the larger story.

In both professional iterations (West End 1986, Broadway 1988) Freddie and Anatoly receive somewhat satisfying conclusions, while Florence is left with nothing. News of her father’s fate never arrives. Here, we are provided a coda in which, in exchange for the defected Anatoly returning to Russia, Florence is reunited with her father. It was a bit jarring, as this elderly man  is led on stage by a CIA agent; first I thought, which sexy chorus member in old age make-up is that, and then, has he just been sitting backstage this entire time?

Michele does get her star turns, though, and they are epic. “Nobody’s Side” and “Heaven Help My Heart” are act one standouts. Unfortunately, for Florence and for Michele, there is or was only one featured number for the character in act two, and it’s a duet with Anatoly’s estranged Russian spouse Svetlana, “I Know Him So Well.” To add to her solo performances, Michele concludes with “Someone Else’s Story,” written for the West End production – to be sung by Svetlana. The song is literally someone else’s story.

Whether you enjoy this version of Chess depends, I believe, on whether or not you have a sense of humor. Since the holidays I have watched the original West End production on YouTube, and it has a light book, the story is mostly sung-through and like the concept album, and seems to take itself quite seriously. Even so, this modern version has its moments of head-scratching weirdness. It’s odd that they used a hydraulic lift to briefly show Florence and Anatoly in a literal bed together, and yet there is not one moment in the entire production when two people sit down at a table, however briefly, to play chess.

But I loved it.  

The next day was December 31. We headed to the airport and flew home. My wife and I have been in each other’s presence every New Year’s Eve since meeting in the streets of Athens, Ohio at the stroke of midnight, January 1, 1990. She’s my alternative girlfriend. And we have spent a couple NYE’s in NYC, but only a couple – 2022, 2023. Though we arrived on December 27, we decided it would be enough (and considerably less expensive) to return on the last day of the year, and after all, home is our favorite spot, anyway.

конец.

Secret New Year's Getaway (part one)

It all started early this November when my wife read something somewhere about the play The Lehman Trilogy, written by Stefano Massini, adapted by Ben Power. She has been researching the subprime mortgage crisis and the financial collapse of the late aughts, and thought this was a play we should see. I spotted an ad in the Times that said it closes January 2 and we both decided that’s that. There were no weekends we could pop off to New York to see a play between then and when we were planning to visit London in mid-December. 

“What if we went for New Year’s Eve?” she suggested. Now that was an idea. New Year’s is our special night, we met on a New Year's Eve and have spent every NYE together since. Even if we have nothing special planned, it is special for us. We’d never spent one in New York City, though, and why not? After all of this not going anywhere. We’d come home from England after seeing my brother and his family, and a few days later jet off to New York, all on our own.

We got tickets; to a show, on a plane, she found a hotel. And then Omicron arrived.

Library Walk in the rain.

England was a non-starter, and most of those arrangements we were not penalized for. That was before our son contracted a pre-Christmas Covid. But what about New York? Would it be foolish to go? Maybe our fate would be decided for us, but our flight was not canceled, and this show, which used only three actors, had not yet been suspended due to an outbreak.

Surely we had a responsibility to go to the city and spend ridiculous amounts of money. Not because we “deserved it” or anything as immature as that. Just because … well … I have no idea. Because we’d made plans. Because we wanted to. Because no one stopped us. Still, we decided not to tell anyone until it was over, and we were home safe and well. And so we are.

Friday, December 31, 2021

Though we have visited New York several times with the children, and other times on our own, my wife and I had not visited the city together alone for almost twenty years. In May 2002 we visited, specifically to see Urinetown, but also just to go. Since she moved to Cleveland in 1995 we’d always made a trip more or less once a year. We drove that year, and it was the first time she had taken in the skyline without the Twin Towers. She's the one of us who lived in NYC, in the late 80s and early 90s, but hadn't been back now for over five years.

This weekend, she’d booked us a room at the Library Hotel, up the street from the main public library, and it is a hoot. Our room, 500.001, was of course the Mathematics room (look it up, as they say) and there were shelves stacked with a variety of books on the subject.

For your information, room 800.001 is the Erotic Fiction room but I imagine that is a suite.

Having several hours to kill before an 8 PM dinner reservation on the LES, we walked forty blocks up to the Met. This is where things began to feel weird. We would go maskless when space permitted, but Fifth Avenue, Madison Avenue, these streets are crowded with tourists (of whom, yes, we were two) probably biding their time before heading to Times Square by midnight. When we were among the throng, we would put the masks back on.

So strange, people queuing along the avenue to enter the Lego Store, the Nike NYC, two at a time. They were waiting in line to shop. For Legos.

Before Yesterday We Could Fly

Desiring a light lunch before we reached the Met, we dunked into Viand, an old school New York diner. At first the wife did not wish to enter, thinking it would be too close, but there were few occupied tables and we were very pleased with the uncomplicated surroundings. We knew we would get fancy later.

It reminded me of my several visits before she moved to Cleveland, this cozy, claustrophobic basic joint. In those days everyone would be smoking. We’d be smoking, too.

At the Met we got our bearings as we usually do, at the Temple of Dendur, before seeking new sights. The heart of the museum includes a new Afrofuturist exhibit, and I wanted to see that.

In the mid 19th century, the African American community Seneca Village was seized by the city to make way for the proposed Central Park, it’s citizens forced to relocate. The Met acknowledges those who previously occupied land (these people, and the Lenape before them) where the museum now rests in the exhibit Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room. It is a collection of wild and colorful beaded items, photographs, prints, ceramics, a video installation.

A narrow walkway surrounds the collection, another opportunity to be a little too close to others. I found it jarringly symbolic when a gang of young, white dopes entered the space, spreading out to occupy as much of the available room as possible. One of them, either their leader or that guy who thinks he is, mocking announced, “This is not art.”

Where do these people come from, and why are they in an art museum on New Year’s Eve?

Back at the hotel we dressed all fancy, and headed to the Lower East Side for dinner at Ladybird. So queer as in strange, a block or so from where our son and I spent an extended weekend only a couple months before. Like, we spent most of our time downtown for four days and it was odd to just pop back in for a few hours. Because this was such an LES joint, tiny and close, appointed with mirrors and murals to provide the illusion of space.

The wife is vegetarian, and this place is a highly esteemed vegan restaurant, serving a five-course, prix fixe meal for the holiday. I chose an odd cocktail to begin, they offered something called a Smoking Lady Bishop. A traditional Smoking Bishop is referenced in A Christmas Carol, and for several years I concocted the Victorian era beverage for the staff holiday party. I’ve never had anyone serve one to me before.

My beautiful date.

The regular is basically a wine mulled with citrus, cloves and sugar. In this case, spices included cardamom, peppercorn, cinnamon and allspice. It was rich and warm and I took my time with it. We took our time with everything.

One of the standouts of the meal were the vegan “escargot” which were morels that had been steeped in seaweed brine, providing the rich, musky flavor you would expect from snails.

Our dinner reservation included an invitation to a masquerade ball, somewhere close by, but having spent several hours maskless in an intimate setting with dozens of other diners, we decided not to press our luck, and headed instead to the rooftop bar at our hotel.

We arrived shortly before midnight, had a glass of Veuve Clicquot, and toasted the new year the same way we had met seconds before January 1, 1990 – out of doors, in the cold, with a light rain.

To be continued.

Notes on Fringe (Day Seven)

Huh. Day seven? Okay, that's like, you know. A week. Last Thursday James and I met in front of PlayhouseSquare in Cleveland, promptly left town and haven't been back. We have been running on fumes ever since.

Last night I was up until about 2:30 AM finishing the last blog post, and woke to sunlight and car horns around seven. took a run, woke James and we headed to the Delacorte to hand out palm cards to folks waiting for Free Shakespeare in the Park. We handed out two hundred cards! Should have brought more, folks were very receptive and interested.

Dendur.

We also went to the Met, I gave James my nickel tour. We were invited to join Emily and her friends at the Natural History Museum, but by mid-afternoon I was entirely exhausted ... and frankly a little demoralized. Pre-sale for this evening's performance was 14. Ticket sales are supposed to go up, not down.

Tonight was our latest performance, 8:30 PM. We load out costumes and wigs an hour prior to performance, wait for the space to open at 30 minutes to curtain, set up in fifteen minutes and then open the house.

So by 5 PM, we were all back at the apartment ... waiting. The early evening was a little existential Naps were taken, coffee was made and enjoyed, programs were folded, YouTube videos were watched, and ... uh, yeah.

Once we hit the street, however, spirits brightened, paces quickened, and we were back in the zones. It's been three days since our most recent performance, we needed to get back into it.

And you know, I think tonight was the best show we've had so far! What a great audience, we had over twenty people walk-up, there were most people in the house tonight than on Sunday! And they were hot for the work, it was great fun.

 Two Boots.