There’s something so joyful about a chorus line in full flight. Even in a show like Chess that’s essentially a tragedy (as well as being a slightly outdated but somehow still depressingly relevant narrative about misogyny and the bully-boy approach of the USA to geopolitics), high energy dance combined with gorgeous harmonies and live orchestral music make for a fun show.

Chess, presented by Musical Theatre Dunedin and directed by Greg MacLeod is playing a long season (for Dunedin, at any rate, since the Fortune Theatre closed) at the Coronation Hall in Mosgiel. The company is a mix of highly experienced and emerging performers.  Dunedin has spectacular talent in the musical theatre genre and it’s always an absolute delight to watch familiar faces and new ones giving their all on small and large stages.

The leads, Max Beal as Anatoly and Anna Langford as Florence, are rich and professional. Their voices are powerful, emotional and hold their own over the sometimes overwhelming music. Their solos create tangible fizz in the audience, as does Ben Thomas (Frederick) leading “One Night in Bangkok” – possibly the campest scene I’ve watched on stage in a long time but maybe I just don’t get out enough. The other main characters play their parts with skill and personality.

The chorus perform their multiple parts without missing a beat or appearing to get even remotely puffed. They’re polished and sound beautiful although some seem at times a little cold, without huge emotional connection to the roles – I wonder if that’s because of the storyline.  

The staging and set is complex and busy with two panels sliding back and forth across the stage holding projection as well as black and white cubes brought back and forth by the cast and couches. The series of old photos of the uprising in Budapest in the 1950s is heartbreaking – you can imagine that it’s Ukraine or Gaza. Same same but different.

There’s a lot to look at in amongst a lot of movement and costume changes but it’s all pleasing to the eye and the mind. The large-scale chess match towards the end is brilliant with members of the chorus moving pieces, almost like automatons but with the snap of a shoulder or a hip or an eyebrow to keep things sassy. 

Throughout the performance, I reflect on the idea of voice as an instrument rather than a part of the person/personality. Beal particularly transmits the story inside the music through the pitch and tones and shapes of his voice as much as through the words he is singing. Langford has moments of beautiful purity in her voice that are arresting. 

I also reflect on whether there is an ongoing need to continue to tell some of these stories, although much of this one holds true in the timeline we’re all trying to get through. Misogyny and casual racism are evergreen issues but I’m not sure I found the disapproval of them told boldly enough in this script. I wonder if it’s time for some of our clever Dunedin storytellers to turn their hand to telling our own stories or to framing these older stories in a more current context. 

The programme lists a large team of people who have contributed time, energy and probably money to this season, with several names appearing multiple times. As well as being a fun night out in a cute theatre with a full house, this production of Chess shows that there is still plenty of heart in Ōtepoti’s arts community and an abundance of on-stage and off-stage talent.

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