S.D. Hopeful Had the Right Moves in ‘Chess’ Tryout

It was a scene out of “A Chorus Line” when 400 female hopefuls answered the cattle call for the national tour of “Chess.” A determined Brenda O’Brien was among them. Seven callbacks later, the spunky San Diego transplant was the only player left on the board.

“They knew what they wanted,” she recalled in an interview from her New York apartment. “They lined you up in a circle, and made their selections. First it was only the casting agent, but from then on, each department had to OK me--the director, music (director), choreographer, producers.”

The agonizing process dragged out over three weeks, but O’Brien never lost heart.

“It’s hard to keep going,” she acknowledged. “It’s stressful. But I’ve changed my attitude. I don’t go to auditions if I don’t think I really want to do the part. . . . I haven’t had too many rejections, but if I don’t get the part, I forget about it and go on to the next one. This time I really felt good about the role. I had a lot of confidence.”

Though O’Brien plays a character much older than her own 25 years in “Chess,” she wasn’t intimidated by the part.

“I’ve been playing character roles since I was 16,” she said. “I speak a lot of languages. Russian wasn’t one of them, but I studied a lot of dialect. In ‘Chess,’ I play a KGB agent, and I’m the understudy for the lead. Since a lot of my lines are in Russian, I not only had to learn how to act the part, I had to deal with another language. But that’s part of the fun of it. It’s more of a challenge.”

The story is based on a chess showdown between an American and a Soviet in the 1970s.

In “Chess”--which began its yearlong tour in Miami last Tuesday (no local dates are planned)--O’Brien expects to have plenty of opportunities to step out of her minor role and into the spotlight.

“The star gets to take days off, and she’ll have vacation time,” O’Brien noted, “so I don’t have to wait for her to get sick. I should get to do a lot of the matinees on the road.”

O’Brien left a string of local successes behind when she moved to New York. Among them were lead roles in productions at her alma mater, United States International University, and professional stints with Starlight, Lawrence Welk Village Theatre and the now-defunct Fiesta Dinner Theater. O’Brien snared two local awards on the home front during those years.

Like most performers with an eye on Broadway, O’Brien has a strong background in acting, singing and dancing. And her comic gifts are well-known to local audiences through such shows as “Annie Get Your Gun” and “Once Upon a Mattress.”

However, the talented triple threat is convinced that her adaptability as a dancer gave her the edge over the competition for “Chess.”

“In the dance audition, the choreographer did about five different styles, and you had to be able to pick them up quickly. The dancers (in this show) are not incredible ballerinas, or tap dancers. It’s more stylized acting and movement, but you have to know a lot of different types of dancing.

“You have to move like chess pieces, and although it’s sort of dancey, you have to look natural,” she said. “This kind of music (rock ‘n’ roll) is not like dancing in ‘Oklahoma.’ There’s more meaning and excitement.”

“Chess” flopped on Broadway, but, as O’Brien pointed out, the goal is to make a triumphant return with a new, improved product.

“Now it’s been rewritten. It was a success in Europe until they tinkered with it for Broadway. It’s a much better show since they took out some of the confusing subplots and made the music more powerful. Tim Rice is still working on the lyrics. And now, with all that’s been happening in the news, it’s good timing for the show.”

The reworking is being directed by Des McAnuff, artistic director of the La Jolla Playhouse, whom O’Brien described as “very free and open. He lets you create.”

Consequently, the role of the KGB agent has evolved a good deal since O’Brien began filtering it through the prism of her own zany imagination.

“It was a much more serious role, but they’re discovering me now,” she said. “They’re letting me try this and that to develop the character, and they’re adding punch lines. (Svetlana) was not a humorous part, but they’re finding the humor in me.”

Along with her offbeat flair for comedy, O’Brien has a deep, distinctive voice for grinding out the accented dialogue and belting out the tunes with brassy gusto. Her dark good looks were another plus in landing her role.

But O’Brien discounts all those obvious assets and credits common sense for her early success.

“The best thing I have going for me I’m finding over and over is my plain old common sense,” she said. “It doesn’t matter how talented you are, you can’t make it without it. You have to have an understanding of people, and of the politics of the situation. Just knowing about the world is so important.”

O’Brien’s focus has always extended well beyond the ABCs of acting, singing and dancing. She graduated as valedictorian of the School of Performing Arts at USIU, despite a heavy load.

“I took history, philosophy and law, even though I didn’t need those things, because you can’t be an actress unless you know what you’re acting about.”

O’Brien never set her sights on superstardom.

“I’m not your fame and fortune type,” she said. “I don’t want a high-in-the-sky career. I want a long career. I’m striving to be good.”