There has already been a musical, Chess, inspired by the contest between a Soviet master and an American challenger. Now comes a play by Tom Morton-Smith that dramatises the real-life battle to be world chess champion that took place in Reykjavik in 1972 between Boris Spassky and Bobby Fischer. It’s an intriguing story but one told at excessive length and, unlike Morton-Smith’s brilliant 2015 play about Robert Oppenheimer, it never gives sufficient heft to the ideological context.
The play presents us with two classically contrasted opponents. Spassky is the coolly orthodox reigning champion who abides by World Chess Federation rules. Fischer is the brattish maverick who arrives late, criticises the venue and spits in an official’s face. Even if we know the outcome, there is a fascination in seeing how Fischer’s tactic of breaking his rival’s ego succeeds not only in undermining Spassky but also in inducing paranoia among his team. We are also reminded of how the federation caves in to Fischer because so much money is at stake.
Although both players are studiously apolitical, their contest is clearly a proxy war. But, while we hear two phone conversations between Henry Kissinger and Fischer, I wish we had learned more about the political background. The summer of 72 was a time in which the Soviet Union was losing its foothold in the Middle East and the US was on the run in Vietnam, which lent extra significance to events in Reykjavik. Morton-Smith’s chief concern seems to be with Fischer’s unruly temperament. Robert Emms plays him excellently as a poor boy from the Bronx who feels he is treated as a freak and whose sense of exclusion fuels his neurosis. Even if Fischer is too dominant, Ronan Raftery deftly shows how Spassky’s self-containment gradually disintegrates. There is strong support from Gary Shelford as an Icelandic security guard who explains the role played by ravens in his country’s foundation. There is a good play in here somewhere, but it is not helped by Annabelle Comyn’s over-complicated staging or the three-hour running-time.
• At Hampstead theatre, London, until 18 January.
