#chesscapades

I can't believe the "He Is a Man, He Is a Child" rewrite makes the choice to remove the reference to Anatoly and Svetlana's child, also named Anatoly, because that's really the central conceit of the song, isn't it? Svetlana is literally stuck between Anatoly the Man and Anatoly the Child--- her identity as a "lover" vs. her identity as a "babusjka"--- and the song implies that her relationship with Anatoly fell apart not just because Anatoly started treating her differently but that the reason he started treating her differently because they had a kid. In most versions of Chess, it's pretty explicit (though maybe often unexamined?) that the thing Anatoly is fleeing from in his relationship with Svetlana is pressures of the nuclear family dynamic ("he needs his fantasy and freedom"/ the entirety of Endgame) and I like how the original "He Is a Man, He Is a Child" explores the way Svetlana is trapped as well, but in a way she, unlike Anatoly, cannot escape from because as "the mother" she has no choice but to become a caretaker. There's a really fascinating intersection with Anatoly's own struggles with identity that does a lot to characterize Svetlana in a very short amount of time and it really sucks that they changed it

Chess fans everywhere REJOICE as Lea Michelle announces June departure

I really like that in the original Broadway production, Freddie is the one who introduces the “1956” motif (as his way of manipulating Florence) and in the RAH concert (or in the album at least), you can clearly hear Josh Groban picking the motif up at the end of “Endgame #2” because that’s what Anatoly’s thinking about going into the final chess game.

Chess fans everywhere go into mourning as Lea Michelle’s “Nobody’s Side” hits streaming platforms

They released “Anthem,” “Nobody’s Side,” and “Pity the Child” early because they know “He is a Man, He is a Child” and “The Soviet Machine” are what the people are really waiting for

sometimes a man hurts every woman in his life because his true soulmate is the game chess

The thing about Pity the Child is that it is a song where a man bears his soul to an audience and explains to them everything that has happened in his life to make him the way he is, practically begging to be understood, and then it ends with a final plea from that character, to the audience, to ignore all that stuff he just said because a person's childhood stops being a valid excuse for their behavior as soon as they "become" an adult, whatever that means. but then, of course, it negates all that with an actual final plea to the audience to pity the adult parents of the hypothetical fucked up child, even though we should stop thinking of this child as a child, for the fact that they missed out on being a part of their fucked-up not-child's life because their not-child was really awesome and cool the whole time and fuck them, actually, I was lying earlier when I said my childhood doesn't still impact me. what I'm trying to say is that it's surprising how well Pity the Child works as either the beginning of a redemption arc, where Freddie pulls his head out of his ass and decides to be the bigger person, breaking a generational streak of selfish, self-destructive behavior, or as a moment where he doubles-down, deciding that everything he has ever done wrong in his life is justified by wrongs done to him by others first and that he has no reason to take accountability for his actions because that's just the way his world works.