Review - A View From the Bridge

When the current revival of Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge was announced last year, I thought, you know what?  I've seen two revivals of it just since I've lived in New York!  That's enough for any person, even me, even though I do love me some Arthur Miller.  Both productions were fantastic and I loved both Anthony LaPaglia and Liev Schreiber as Eddie Carbone.  But once I began seeing the show pop up again and again on TDF, I began to get second thoughts.  I thought I might regret missing it, and so I picked up a discounted ticket for last night.

I was in the fourth row center of the mezzanine - a fine seat, to be sure, though the leg room leaves a lot to be desired, but this production is so stripped down, I was maybe a little too far from the action.  There were quite a few spots where there was no light and I couldn't really see, and there were also quite a few spots where it made it hard to hear the dialogue.  I think I might've gotten more out of the experience if I had been a little closer.

Or not.  This production was directed by Belgian director Ivo van Hove.  He's an avant garde director, known for taken texts apart and putting them back together again, stripped of basically everything - sets, lights, costumes and context.  As a rule, this kind of directing isn't my cup of tea.  I've seen two productions directed by van Hove, the first one I rather liked, though it annoyed me in places in the second act (and now that I'm thinking about it, that second act annoyance showed up in last night's performance.  hmmmmm.), and I didn't like the second production at all.  AT ALL.  I rest in the middle this time; I sort of liked this production of A View from the Bridge, in spite of myself.  But when you have an Arthur Miller script as the base, it's hard not to get involved in spite of yourself.

A View from the Bridge is a modern tragedy, of sorts, with lead character, Eddie Carbone, as a regular guy hero with a tragic flaw, and a sort of Greek chorus character, the lawyer Alfieri.  The action takes place in Brooklyn and shows what can happen when unacknowledged and repressed desire take over a man and strip him of his reason.  Part of the quality that makes A View from the Bridge so universal is its specificity.  In seeing an immigrant family in Brooklyn dealing with problems that families have dealt with for centuries, but elevating them into mythic/tragic consequences, anyone watching the play can recognize themselves.  By stripping the play of its location, its time and place and its context, I think the director has stunted the power of the play.  At times, I would be thrilled, as I always am, by the sheer force and vigor of Miller's language, but then I would be taken out by the annoying sound design, or the ambling blocking that was necessitated by the boxing-ring set.  I don't know, I guess I'm a purist.  When you have a great play, I guess it's good that it can lend itself to many interpretations, but then again - why not leave the great script alone?

photo credit: Jan Versweyveld

There are no sets, just a white boxing ring-type thing, with glass and plastic around the sides.  People come in or out of the door hole all the way upstage, whether the scene takes place indoors or outdoors.  Everyone is wearing nondescript clothes, in muted colors, and no shoes.  And there is a constant humming or buzzing sound going on throughout the play, sometimes with drum beats to emphasize "oh this is important now" or with some choral music to emphasize "oh this is universal now."  I couldn't help myself, all that took me out of the play.  I didn't need that constant music to help me.  I didn't need that bare set to make the play "timeless."  The situation IS timeless and adding the twaddle just didn't add anything for me.  And the final coup de theatre was sort of striking, but also all sorts of wrong.  If the reason to have that white set is to have that final picture?  Not enough of a reason, in my book.



photo credit: Jan Versweyveld

But because the play itself is so good and the acting is mainly fantastic, I did enjoy myself, on the whole.  Mark Strong is a fantastic Eddie Carbone (but, really, though, did every actor have to be gym-ready in their taut toned physiques?  I mean, it was pleasant to look at all those chiseled abs, but are they really 'timeless'?  Sorry, I digress.), very primal and intense.  When he started screaming for his 'respect,' I began to wish I could see him play John Proctor some day (and the fact that Ivo van Hove is also directing the upcoming revival of my favorite Miller play, The Crucible?  scary to me).  You can see the confidence in himself as a man be peeled away as the play goes on to its horrible conclusion.  I thought Nicola Walker was a wonderful Beatrice, very worn by life but still filled with love for her family.  She can see what lies beneath things and chooses to ignore them.  It's a nice interpretation - often Beatrice is unseeing until its too late.

photo credit: Jan Versweyveld

I liked Phoebe Fox as Catherine most of the time, though I did think she had a bad habit of swallowing her words, so I missed probably a third of what she was saying.  I think it was because of the accent thing.  I'll talk more about the accents in a bit.  Russell Tovey is quite dishy and very good as Rodolpho, if a bit too transparent, and Michael Zegen as Marco brings a tragic elegance to his character.  Michael Gould's Alfieri was very well done, too.  Everyone was good, though those accents!  I don't know if this was part of the stripping the play of its context, but only Eddie's Brooklyn accent was even close to accurate.  Beatrice and Catherine went in and out, sort of Brooklyn-ish, the two Italian immigrants sounded like they were from Kansas and I don't know where Alfieri was from.  He mentions in one of his monologues that he's been in America for about 20 years.  Yet there's no trace of Italian and no trace of Brooklyn.  I guess I should be glad it wasn't a British accent.  But the accent thing drove me nuts, and I'm not usually hung up on such things.

But my heart still skipped beats when Eddie issues his two kisses, and I still got teary when Beatrice decided to not go to the wedding, Catherine finally explodes (even though I couldn't understand what she was saying), and Rodolpho tries to repent.  I still held my breath at times.  So the PLAY still works like gangbuster, at least for me.  The production, on the other hand...at times, left me cold.  And I realize I'm in the extreme minority - this production got RAVE reviews across the board.  Ah, well.  I'll definitely go see The Crucible, but I have to admit, my expectations will not be high...