Theater review

CHESS

Two hours and 45 minutes with one intermission. <br>At the Imperial Theatre, 249 W. 45th St.

By the time the curtain rises at the Imperial Theatre, the revival of “Chess” has already given up.

The set, such as it is, is revealed to be a semicircle of metal stairs and platforms, on which sit the orchestra musicians.

Yes, the old flop musical with ABBA DNA and a notoriously knotty story that opened Sunday on Broadway, is staged as an elaborate concert — making its already frigid geopolitical love quadrangle even more challenging to follow and fully impossible to care about.

With hardly any helpful staging from director Michael Mayer, who has developed an EpiPen-level allergy to good shows, the endless production becomes totally reliant on the amped-up singing of le

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