Scottsdale's Desert Stages Theatre must have felt invincible after its smash hit revival of “Cabaret” closed earlier this month.

That production used the quaint black box theater's size to its advantage, creating a vibrant sense of intimacy for a show that's usually played in much nicer digs. Fast on “Cabaret's” heels, though, is a rock musical that attempts to play the same kind of tricks with the cozy room — but fails. “Chess,” written by Tim Rice with music by the male half of disco group ABBA, is too broad in scope and design to fit at Desert Stages.

It doesn't help that the plot and music of “Chess” are so firmly stuck in the 1980s. Under the veil of the Cold War, an egotistical American chess champion, Freddie (played by Jeff Davey), is pitted against Soviet Anatoly (Jonathan Bowersock) while Freddie's assistant, Florence (Jessica Godber), finds herself falling in love with the Russkie.
These days, the Cold War is a muddled bit of recent history — not yet romanticized — and chess masters play publicized matches against computers, not across borders. The musical score of “Chess,” meanwhile, harkens back to movie soundtracks by Harold Faltermeyer (“Beverly Hills Cop,” “Fletch”). It's hardly timeless.

During the intermission of a show last weekend, I went out and voted for Reagan.

Those looking for a repeat of “Cabaret's” vocal magic will be disappointed in this cast's lack of competence with rockier fare; the score's melodic reaches cause some vocal straining. Even Godber fans will wish she had better material than “Nobody's Side.”

Still, Godber and company, under the direction of Gerry and Laurie Cullity, do some fine acting with the material. In a play packed with unlikable one-note creeps, Florence is given the most room to blossom into a nuanced character, room which is used by Godber — sometimes utilizing eyeglasses like Superman to hide her charisma — to inject more heart. And Bowersock, whom I had seen only in smaller roles previously, turns in a low-key but enjoyable performance here.
It's too bad, then, that the show's prerecorded soundtrack is too thin and a set of projection screens showing a panoply of chess- and Cold War-related images ends up as more of a distraction than anything else. It's simply too sprawling of a playscript to work in such an intimate setting.

For a theater still taking bows for its “Cabaret,” this game of “Chess” is humbling.