First Act Structure - Part 2: Broadway
So after London premiered and it was apparent the show still needed work, progress begins on the revisions in the move to Broadway. Two different paths emerge from here- first, Rice submits his revisions for the show (allegedly these become the basis of the 1991 Sydney production), which Nunn rejects. Having gained creative control over the Broadway production when he took over for Michael Bennett in London, Nunn brings in playwright Richard Nelson to do a complete rewrite of the book.
So what we have are two different fixes on London- Rice's, which would eventually become the Sydney version, and Nelson's. Now, it's not entirely known what the creative process was like in developing the Broadway book, and we don't know for sure how much influence Rice and the other creatives had on the final Nelson script. However, given how markedly different Rice and Ulvaeus/Andersson's conceptions of the show were from Broadway, and how different their later respective versions ended up being, it's safe to assume that the Broadway script is mostly the work of Trevor Nunn and Richard Nelson, and can reasonably be called "their version".
So, how do they go about fixing the problems in London?
Let's start with the scene-by-scene breakdown:
Prologue - Budapest, 1956 ("The Story of Chess")
Hotel Press Conference ("Press Conference")
An Anatoly/Molokov scene ("Where I Want to Be")
A Freddie/Florence scene ("How Many Women")
Chess Arena ("Merchandisers", "US vs. USSR")
First Match and Aftermath ("Quartet")
A Florence/Freddie/Walter scene ("The American and Florence", "Someone Else's Story")
Freddy surveys the Bangkok nightlife ("One Night in Bangkok")
The Generous Sole Cafe ("Terrace Duet")
The Second Match/Florence Quits ("Chess No. 2", "Florence Quits/A Taste of Pity", "Nobody's Side")
Anatoly leaves Bangkok ("Anatoly and the Press", "Anthem")
Here, what pops out initially is how close it still is to London. Structurally they're almost exactly the same, and even compared on a scene-by-scene basis they map out pretty closely. The biggest difference is, of course, the fact that the Broadway show is a traditional book musical, and as such the interstitial material in London has been mostly discarded in favor of book scenes.
Largely, though, it's impressive how much of the act is developed out of rectifying the flaws in London, and how well it actually does at this. The issue of the pre-match bloat is nearly gone- Freddie's entrance is integrated into the press conference (which is a better first scene for him anyways), and much of the Opening Ceremony numbers are either cut or shortened, all in all shaving 15-20 minutes off the act.
Broadway does another thing over London here, which is firmly root the story around Florence Vassy. A point I had initially expanded on in my London post but cut due to length was that it's very difficult to parse out who the main character of the show was based on the first half-hour. Part of this is due to the changing nature of Chess- it's evident from the concept album that Anatoly was intended to be the main character of the show, but in the transition to London Florence gained prominence and seemed to become the focus. And yet, the first half-hour is centered almost entirely around Freddie, making the question of "Who is this show about, anyways?" a tad ambiguous*.
Broadway makes no such ambiguities, though, and comes right out and says it in its first scene- this version is about Florence. Hence we get the prologue set during the Hungarian Revolution and featuring a young Florence and her father, who sings to her "The Story of Chess". With one scene, Florence is firmly planted as the main character, and the whole of the drama centers around her (Stockholm pulled the same trick with their "Story of Chess" but with Anatoly- it's proven to be a very versatile number).
This also leads into what is probably Broadway's biggest departure from London- splitting "Nobody's Side" off "The American and Florence" and moving it towards the end of the act. All things considered, this is really a better place for it- "Nobody's Side" is a showstopping number and a huge character moment for Florence, and it functions much better arc-wise than it did resting at an odd sort of midpoint for the character.Ā This new positioning also means that "Nobody's Side" now functions as the heralding of the end of the act, which Broadway also manages to cut down efficiently- only two scenes of moderate length are left, and the only major number is "Anthem", effectively removing the end-of-act fatigue that had set in back in London.Ā
It really is remarkable how much of Broadway's Act I functions as a fix on London- virtually every scene seems to come out of repairing a flaw- for instance, in the pre-match Freddie/Florence scene, "Commie Newspapers" is centered too much around Freddie, and Florence seems too happy. Thus we get "How Many Women", which is firmly about Florence and her frustrations with Freddie (though they in the process overdo it a tad, coming off rather strident). Elsewhere, Anatoly and Florence don't have a meaningful interaction outside of "Quartet" before their duet, thus we get the restaurant scene. So much of the act functions as a very effective reworking of the base London structure.
Where it falls flat is the one new scene, in which Freddie for no real reason explores the Bangkok nightlife so we can have "One Night in Bangkok". The urge to be charitable here is strong- this is perhaps the most popular number from the show, and outside of London it's extremely difficult to place. It functionally works best as an Act opener, and since Broadway has both the prologue and Act II take place in Budapest, there isn't really a good place left to put it. And on the surface it's positioning makes sense- "we moved a big showstopping number to the end of the act, so let's drop in the other we have near its place"- but it comes out of nowhere and doesn't function in any dramatic capacity- it's not a meaningful character moment for Freddie, it doesn't establish much plot-wise, it just doesn'tĀ do anything.
It's a dead moment of the show, and it comes at the part of the act where the writing is weakest- for some reason a lot of the later Act I scenes are rather clunky, with the restaurant scene being rushed, the Freddie/Florence moments being insufferably shrill, and the defection scene somewhat laughably overdramatic (though to be fair, these are all issues alleviated with competent direction, which the original Broadway production was unfortunately in dire need of at times).Ā But on the whole, what we find is a largely competent and well-executed fix on London. And it's worth commenting here on the book as a whole, since Nelson's script is the most derided part of the Broadway version.
Really, the reason for this is that much of the script was rushed during rehearsals so they could open in May in time for the Tony season (I suspect this is the reason for the clunky later Act I scenes), plus the fact that the second act is a misanthropic and cynically pretentious disaster. But Nelson is a competent playwright with a firm grasp on dramatics and structuring, and thus what we find in the Broadway book is that its faults are driven by conceptual means more than technical ones- i.e. the book itself is extremely well-structured and in parts quite well-written, but many of the ideas themselves are wrong-headed at a fundamental level. There's not a lot wrong with the flow and pacing of Act II--it's that the very idea of the Gregor Vassy subplot and the false father ending is toxic to the show.
But when separated from that (as we would find in the later revised versions of the Broadway script, especially the David Bell productions), the strengths of the book begin to come forth. And indeed, just looking at Act I, what we have is a strong first act that, while in definite need of revisions at points, is largely well-structured with a good sense of flow and pacing and a clear idea of who and what the show is about.
It's in many ways a much stronger Act I than London.
Next up: We're actually going to skip forward about 15 years to look at how Ulvaeus and Andersson approached structuring the show when translating it to their native language, and see the ways in which Act I ofĀ Chess PĆ„ Svenska strays and hews to the base London structure of the show.
*A longer post on the subject of "Just who is Chess about, anyways?" is in the works.
