View from a Bridge
Richard Davies reviews Rose Theatre Kingston’s production of Arthur Miller’s classic play.
Address: 24-26 High St, Kingston upon Thames KT1 1HL
Our verdict
It’s 70 years since Arthur Miller looked down from Brooklyn Bridge and was inspired to write a drama about the lives of the dockworkers on New York’s East River. View from a Bridge tells the story of ordinary people torn apart by forces beyond their control – a Greek tragedy for modern times.
In the interests of disclosure, I studied this play as an A level text. I was a bit triggered by flashbacks to my 17-year-old self, occasionally finding myself mumbling along to long-ago memorised lines. Personal trauma aside, I’d like to congratulate The Rose Theatre Kingston for a quality production of this important play.
To summarise the story (hopefully without spoilers): longshoreman Eddie Carbone lives in a tenement home with his wife, Beatrice and her orphaned niece, Catherine, whom Eddie adores and dreams will one day work as a legal secretary.
Enter Rodolpho and Marco, Beatrice’s Sicilian cousins, who are illegal aliens desperately seeking work. At first, Eddie is honoured to help his wife’s family by giving them a place to stay.
Eddie respects Marco, who wants only to send money home to his sick, starving family and return in a few years. But Rodolpho wants to make a new life for himself in the US, and when he starts dating Catherine, Eddie becomes a ticking time bomb, set to destroy all he loves.
With its topical themes of economic migration and toxic masculinity, View from a Bridge remains a favourite of theatre directors and A level examiners.
Indeed, the Rose Theatre’s Artistic Director can’t resist a spot of political posturing in the programme: “As we collectively reel in response to the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis, it is not surprising that a government with no solutions of its own would be so drawn to targeting and blaming those who are new to our shores.” Personally I think that's stretching it a bit, but I agree that the play still resonates for our times.
With its topical themes of economic migration and toxic masculinity, the play remains a favourite of theatre directors and A level examiners
As a white male patriarch with a proprietorial attitude towards women, Eddie is clearly on the wrong side of history; in fact, you could say he’s an all-round loser. As the family breadwinner, he earns less bread from his uncertain wages than Catherine stands to earn in her first stenography job.
As a husband, he’s no great shakes in the bedroom, with Beatrice complaining, “When am I going to be a wife again?” when his libido goes AWOL.
Eddie is not even the man of the house anymore, with Italian stallion Marco out-muscling him in the macho stakes while his workmates tease him about Rudolfo’s effeminacy.
Furthermore, the occasional appearance on stage of a muscled ballet dancer intimates that Eddie himself may not be certain of his sexuality. But the problem with the play is perhaps the problem with all Greek drama, which is the sheer inevitability of the hero’s fall.
Even if you don’t know the play backwards, you just know what will happen. Nothing anyone can say or do is going to make any difference. And for that reason, it’s hard to get too invested in any of the characters; they're simply acting out their predetermined roles in the tragedy.
Kirsty Bushell shone as Eddie’s exasperated wife, Beatrice. At times the play seems to revolve solely around her. Luke Newberry and Rachel Diedericks both charmed as the young lovers, Rodolpho and Catherine, while Tommy Simm’Ann smouldered as macho Marco.
Sadly the performance was for me let down by one seemingly minor thing – Jonathan Slinger who played Eddie Carbone struggled to maintain a convincing New York accent, which I found very distracting. It’s such a shame, because otherwise he gave a convincing performance of a man losing his grip on life.
A final word for set designer, Moi Tran – although highly minimalist (really nothing but a large red neon sign with an iron staircase, a few chairs and a backyard swing) somehow it worked to convey a sense of time and place.
