Thursday, March 25, 2010

Chess Match to the Death


Soon to play at the National Youth Theater in Moscow is "Nichya Dlitsya Mgnovenie" (A Stalemate Lasts but a Moment).

But it is Isaac’s standoff with the German guard Schoger (Stepan Morozov) that is the fulcrum of this piece. A brilliant chess master, he is trapped into playing a chess match to the death. If he wins, he dies, but the rest of the children in the ghetto will live. If he loses, he will live, but the children will be carted to the death camps.

What if they play to a stalemate? asks Avraam.

But is that what Isaac wants to do?

More by John Freedman in the Moscow Times.

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