Word: chess
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Blanks., the popular Freshman Arts Project (FAP)-born band recently selected to play Harvard’s Springfest and the Holyoke Stage at Arts First, features drummer John T. Drake ’06. The multi-talented musician has previously played for Chess, Ex-Rated, and is a member of the innovative interdisciplinary art group, “Thirteen.” Drake is also music director for Richard III, which opens next weekend on the Loeb Mainstage...
...Chess...
...some point during Chess, directed by Kathy M. Bencowitz ’03, someone on stage turns to someone else and says, “This would be funny if it weren’t so serious.” Or something similar—what with the malfunctioning microphones, it was really hard to hear what was going on. Regardless, the line—though referring to the conflicting currents of romance, megalomania, Cold War politics, and the game of chess that are the stuff of the plot—can easily serve as a comment on the production...
...awful acoustics vied with constantly failing audio-pickups in warping nearly every other line of dialogue, and lyrics were rendered completely inaudible. This may not have been an entirely bad thing, given the atrociousness of Richard Nelson’s book (“stick to the chess, Freddie, the Russian’s aren’t as stupid as you think”) and the breakneck speed with which most actors spat out their lines. Every cast interaction seemed marked by a distastefully palpable anxiety that ruined pacing and left character motivations as inexplicable as the plot?...
...show’s embarrassing failure to exploit the manifest talents of its participants (all of whom, in other contexts, have acted extremely well), goes without saying. But it is probably more productive to wonder why the Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club, understandably attracted to the flashy high-concept behind Chess (and mind you, it could have turned out great) didn’t step in to abort the venture before the debacle could unfold before a paying audience. Mainstage productions, though they rarely gel, should nonetheless be held to high standards, and a stalemate like Chess should probably have been...