Kevin James Doyle talks with chess aficionados at the post-show meeting of chess lovers. The Huron Club’s decor features chess sets at each table, so that attendees, like the players at left, can have a game. Photographs by Cory Cavin.
Kevin James Doyle has a good story to tell in his solo show After Endgame—along with several engaging digressions. But none of it has to do with performing in the play Endgame by Samuel Beckett. The endgame of the title is the last third of a chess match, Doyle explains. “Blunders typically happen in the endgame,” he warns, when only a few pieces remain on the board.
The engaging stand-up comedian holds a short question-and-answer with the audience members about their chess capabilities, then he imparts some advice:
There are many, many different openings: the Queen’s Gambit, the Spanish Opening, the French Defense—thousands of openings. But let’s focus on something you shouldn’t do. You do not want to move the pawn to F4, okay?
The reason, he says, is that it’s a mug’s move. You’ll be marked as a beginner. And Doyle is someone to listen to, according to his credentials:
I’ve taught 6,500 chess lessons. My oldest chess student is 94 years old. His son got in contact with me because his father was suffering from dementia. He thought chess might keep his brain strong, so I came over and taught him chess, playing with him every single day.
He explains that he has been a private chess tutor to children, some as young as 3. One child had a beautiful aunt named Hana visiting. She asked what he did, and he replied: “I’m a chess instructor, an actor, and a comedian. What about you?” Hana replies that she lives in Morocco, owns a home in Paris and is looking to buy in New York. Kevin’s off-the-cuff response was: “We both said three things. We have so much in common. That’s crazy.”
“Doyle performs his show in a Huron Club that’s been decorated as a chess museum by a retired grandmaster. Behind Doyle are chessboards attached to the walls, with their pieces sticking out horizontally. ”
Doyle keeps the atmosphere loosey-goosey for awhile, roping in an assessment of backgammon, a game of skill and percentages in spite of the use of dice. Eventually, he also talks about his frustration at getting acting jobs, which led him to take a break and live in Paris for four months. Once there, he learns that the name Kevin carries a stigma (putting on a comical French accent). Baffled, he googles it and learns it stands for an “uncouth, low-class, vulgar, semi-literate caricature of everything the French hate about America.”
Then a friend’s text leads to a meeting with another Kevin, a rich, hard-charging, take-no-prisoners type who makes him an offer to join with him in raising funds from businessmen in Singapore. He has learned about Kevin’s teaching:
He said, “What you and your friends are in possession of is a Ferrari.” I said, “What are you talking about?” He said, “You’re using storytelling to teach a complex subject. Chess is just the engine of a Ferrari. The only problem is your Ferrari doesn’t have any doors. It doesn’t have any windshields, it doesn’t have air conditioning, it doesn’t have seats. But that engine of the Ferrari is incredible. … Me and my colleagues, we know how to build doors, we know how to fix up cars, but we could never have that engine.” He proposes that Kevin fly to Singapore to teach chess to the children of investors with the aim of getting those investors to write big checks.
One may speculate where Doyle blundered in his endgame, but he did, yet what happens in Singapore is a memorable life lesson, and all of Doyle’s stories, involving yacht rides, drugs, an unsavory role on Law & Order, a night of high-stakes backgammon, and an encounter with Macauley Culkin, are a treat.
Doyle performs his show in a Huron Club that’s been decorated as a chess museum by a retired grandmaster. Behind Doyle are chessboards attached to the walls, with their pieces sticking out horizontally. One shows a famous game that Bobby Fischer won—although on his 17th move he lost his queen, and observers were sure he had lost the competition. There are drawings and paintings of chess games, such as The Chess Players by Moritz Retsch, also known as Faust and Mephistopheles Playing Chess. Anything and everything related to chess seems to adorn the walls, including a poster from mid-1980s musical Chess, by Tim Rice and Bjorn Ulvaeius.
Most unusually, each table has a chessboard with magnetized pieces, and a small description of a notorious chess match played in Paris in 1858 by American Paul Morphy, matched against Karl II, Duke of Brunswick, and France’s Count Isouard de Vauvenargues. The game was played at an opera house while the opera was being performed, and Morphy won, despite sacrificing his queen. After the show, Doyle hangs out to visit with his chess-obsessed fans.
Kevin James Doyle’s After Endgame runs through March 8 at the Huron Club (15 Vandam St.). Performances are at 7 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. For tickets and more information, visit kevinjamesdoylecomedy.com.
Writer: Kevin James Doyle
Director: Cory Cavin
SoHo Chess Lounge & Museum Designer: Charles “Chuck” Matte
