Kevin, your show, After Endgame, is about how strategies learned in playing chess can be applied to life. How did you come to that realisation?
One of the most important moments in chess is the post-game analysis
I have been using storytelling to teach chess strategies to kids for over twelve years, which you can't do without learning some lessons. For example, if you lose your queen, your most powerful weapon on the board, should you quit or give up? Some part of you will want to give up, but I have played games where I came back from a blunder like that and won. I had to adapt to my new circumstances, develop a new strategy, regroup and figure out how to use my less powerful pieces creatively, not give away that I had made a huge mistake and, most importantly, not give up. There are about 50 life lessons right there.
Once you appreciated the connection in a few sets of circumstances did you then work on finding more.
Writing a show about chess brings with it a breadth of metaphors and themes to choose from, like Shakespeare's plays. Chess is used throughout media and storytelling. The Avenger wins by banding together and Endgame is a chess reference. Harry Potter wins because Ron sacrifices himself for him and The Knight in Seventh Seal is able to outplay Death. Wu-Tang Clan and Bob Dylan have songs with chess metaphors and, most recently, so does The Queen's Gambit. Through most of those examples, I think I’ve been learning how much you can derive from losing, which is something I have to talk to my students about constantly.
Did you appreciate that your discoveries would become a game-changer for you?
The game-changer for me was coming to Edinburgh Fringe in 2017 and learning how to write an hour on a theme. This is my fifth solo show and I love the form and I have a lot of material about chess that I find interesting and I think an audience will too. I just got back from a life-changing trip to Singapore where I taught millionaires and billionaires the world’s greatest game. There is a 60 minute show there. It provided a deep well of material that I knew would only get more interesting the more I worked on it and I was advised not to write a show I would be tired of by the time Fringe started and that has proven to be true!
You mentioned the famous chess term endgame, as used in the film, but for the benefit of those who don’t play chess can you explain what it means.
Endgame is the final stage of a chess game where only a few pieces remain and you are looking for a way to achieve checkmate, which is where the king is trapped with nowhere to escape. Whoever traps the king first in chess, achieves checkmate and is the winner of the game.
And the term itself and what it implies has been used widely.
It’s worked its way into culture through the film title, which makes sense. Taylor Swift has a song called Endgame. She says, I want to be your endgame, his final goal. For years my best friend Cory and I have used the term as an inside joke where we just text each other 'Endgame' with an article or picture attached of something we think would be funny for our ultimate goal in life. Some of them are kind of mean, but once there was a pretty huge television star doing Instagram ads about how much they loved playing gin rummy on a brand-new, amazing app. I texted it to Cory with 'Endgame', the joke being how funny would it be if after all the years of being a massive TV star your end goal was to do Instagram ads for a gin rummy apps.
And 'Endgame' is a pivotal moment in your show.
We all have an endgame for our decisions. What is your goal and why? With this show I am trying to ask if sometimes our endgames are actually worth pursuing. One of the most important moments in chess is the post-game analysis; to look at your mistakes and learn from them to improve your next game. The winners and losers of my show are revealed two thirds of the way into the show, the last third of the show is looking back at what happened. To be less coy, crimes were committed, millions of dollars were exchanged, marriages ended and friendships destroyed. It takes a little time to unpack all that and learn from it.
