Gritty and thrilling, this Arthur Miller classic is almost as relevant today as it was in the 1950s
Bleak but beguiling, this new production of Arthur Miller’s ‘A View from the Bridge’ starts off slow, but soon strikes a chord as time goes by.
On the Brooklyn waterfront, where the fierce passions of ancestral Sicily linger, longshoreman Eddie Carbone and his wife Beatrice agree to house brothers Marco and Rodolpho, who are Beatrice’s cousins and newly arrived illegal immigrants. The arrangement works fine at first, but cracks start to appear when Beatrice’s 17-year-old orphaned niece Catherine falls for the handsome, charismatic Rodolpho. The relationship is supported by Beatrice, but stirs complex feelings in her uncle. Eddie is ostensibly fatherly and protective towards Catherine, but quietly harbours an inappropriate passion for her. As tensions rise and jealousy simmers, their story spirals out of control.
The action is narrated by Alfieri, who was raised in Italy but now works as a lawyer in America, thereby representing the ‘bridge’ between the two cultures.
In a first for ‘A View from the Bridge’, the role of Alfieri is played by a woman. Nancy Crane gives the character an understated aura of authority, and the gender switch works. It has echoes of when Jodie Whittaker lowered her hood and revealed herself as the new Doctor Who. There might be a momentary raising of eyebrows, but you soon realise it works just as well.
Crane says; “I’m excited to be the first woman to play Alfieri and can’t wait to see what it does to the play’s themes of masculinity and toxic masculinity. A modern-day Greek tragedy about love and identity and belonging and revenge, it seems to me incredibly relevant in 2023.”
Jonathan Slinger plays the role of Eddie, and gives a potent performance which captures the character’s despair as he gradually breaks down and becomes the master of his own undoing. However it cannot be ignored that Slinger’s accent veers from Brooklyn across the pond to Italy, and sometimes settles somewhere in between.
Rachelle Diedericks’ portrayal of Catherine encompasses the character’s child-like innocence, which is slowly evaporating as she grows older and closer to Rodolpho. Catherine spends a portion of the play slowly swaying on a swing; a set device that cleverly represents her predicament of swaying between her loyalty to Eddie and her love for Rodolpho.
Tommy Sim’aan and Luke Newberry star as Marco and Rodolpho. Newberry’s performance has a feel of neutrality about it, which is in keeping with the mystique of the character. You can’t quite tell if his love for Catherine is genuine, or borne from his desire to settle in America. Sim’aan’s performance does not feel as gruff and gritty as the character of Marco should be, but is plausible nonetheless.
However it is Kirsty Bushell who steals the show as Beatrice. Bushell’s Beatrice is steely yet vulnerable, with a gritty undertone that shines brightly. Her love for her family and in particular her husband is deep, and Bushell delivers a powerful performance overall.
The action is slow to begin with, but the second half flies by as the plot quickly gathers pace. The use of smoke encircling Eddie’s lower body and quickly creeping outwards is effective; it is representative of how clouded his judgement is and how quickly his problems are escalating. The steep staircase which is front and centre of the set is another effective tool. Characters regularly bound up and down it, and it is so steep you wonder if one of them will come tumbling down at some point. Eddie would be a prime candidate, as every other aspect of his life is also crashing down. One aspect which misses the mark is the inclusion of brief dance sequences by the actors who play Eddie’s work friends and also the immigration officers. It just feels out of place and serves little purpose.
The classic 1955 play is helmed by Artistic Director Holly Race Roughan, and is playing at Rose Theatre in Kingston until Saturday 11th November.