Game 6 is a new musical I’m writing based on the life of 1972 World Chess Champion Bobby Fischer.

​

What follows is a reflection of process between first and second drafts of the script.

​

Fischer was an important but often forgotten figure in the 20th Century. I became fascinated with Fischer when I saw the documentary Bobby Fischer Against the World. This was a man with a spectacular rise and fall. The youngest ever grandmaster, when he became World Champion in 1972 only Muhammad Ali could compete with his fame and notoriety on the world stage. He was depicted in the media as an arrogant and temperamental genius; a Cold Warrior that wouldn’t play the game. After his big win in Reykjavik, Iceland he became a recluse. His mental health plummeted: a Jew descending into conspiracy-fuelled antisemitism. Stateless, the only country that would take him in towards the end of his life was the site of his famous victory: Iceland. He died in Reykjavik in 2008. He was 64: the number of squares on a chess board.

​

The documentary both fascinated and infuriated me. What infuriated me were the gaps. Fischer was clearly autistic. Some of his ‘bad behaviour’, for example, resulting from hyperacusis – heightened sensitivity to sound and light. But no mention of this in the documentary. Scant detail as well about his mother, Regina. In fact, further research reveals frustratingly little detail. A radical feminist and peace-campaigner, her name itself is a gift for a playwright. There was no real sense of Bobby’s Jewish background in the documentary. This was a man brought up in the vibrant cultural world that was ‘50s and ‘60s New York. He was at school with that other pioneering New Yorker, Barbra Streisand. In fact, his life brought him into contact with a dazzling cast of 20th Century cultural figures: Che Guevara, Henry Kissinger, Grace Kelly, and Patti Smith to name but four.

​

So, I set about thinking how Bobby’s story could be told on stage. As a disabled Jew, I hoped I would have some insight and find a way to navigate this complex and compelling story. How to see his misanthropy and antisemitism as more than just cartoon villainy? How to tell Regina’s untold story? How to manage the huge Cold War backdrop without descending into a staged history lesson?

​

I gave the roughest of rough first drafts to a group of undergraduate students and invited them to collaborate. We explored how to reflect neurodiversity not just in the content of the story, but in the way it’s told. A form that celebrates playfulness and flights of the imagination. The style is grounded in storytelling – the only ‘wrong’ casting is to cast to type. The ensemble role-shift from direct address into character and back again. One student described this, positively, as ‘deliberate miscasting’. I like that as a provocation. As with the best popular theatre, audiences enjoy the interplay between performer and character. The presentation of pretence is celebrated. We repurposed out-of-copyright music to explore shifts in mood and to depict Bobby’s central relationship: his love- hate relationship with the game itself. We investigated Jewish culture, specifically how it manifested itself in the chess world. A chorus of Kibitzers worked particularly well (kibitzing being roughly translated from the Yiddish as the ‘giving of unwanted advice’). Bobby’s games, from hustler chess in Washington Square to professional tournaments across the world, were typically accompanied by a chorus of Kibitzers.

​