View From The Bridge

It would be nice just once to be able to see this play without being surrounded by crisp-eating, phone-fiddling teenagers, but that's the price you pay for seeing a work from the academic syllabus. This production, however, is a treat with some excellent performances from the amateur cast, despite a few flaky accents. Roger Newman, as the narrating lawyer Alfieri, deserves particular praise.
 
In this play, one of Arthur Miller's best, Eddie is a longshoreman in the Brooklyn dockyards who fights for work to provide for his wife and his niece, Catherine. They shelter two illegal immigrants, Rudolpho and Marco, who are escaping the post-war poverty of Italy.

From the beginning, there is tension caused by the attraction between Rudolpho and Catherine. Eddie is accustomed to enjoying all of his niece's attention and he has a habit of shielding her from the outside world - particularly men.

Andy Taylor excellently portrays Eddie's growing anger and suspicion which begins to overwhelm him as Catherine's relationship with Rudolpho grows. The simmering tension within the poky apartment, accentuated by the theatre's small stage, threatens to erupt into violence.

Eddie's wife is the first to admit the truth, that his possessiveness and Catherine's inability to defy him are due to their mutual sexual attraction. However, even she does not foresee that the inevitable physical confrontation will end with Eddie forcing a kiss on Rudolpho. He displaces the blame onto Rudolpho and the play moves inexorably to tragedy as Eddie betrays the immigrants to the authorities, ruining his standing in the community and leading to his destruction which those around him are incapable of preventing.
 
The homosexual kiss meant the play's production was restricted in the 1950's but is it still shocking? It certainly is to the teenage audience who reacted as if they were watching a gross-out movie. The cast, however, maintained their concentration. All in all, a very good production of a fascinating play.