Review: A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE, Chichester Festival Theatre - Headlong (Tour)

Photo credit: The Other Richard

As you settle into your seat at the Chichester Festival Theatre for Arthur Miller’s classic play, the thrust stage is dominated by a large neon sign saying ‘Red Hook’, which reflects off the shiny black plastic that covers the stage and a single swing gently sways in one corner. It appears to be an attempt to give this 1955 play a timeless ethereal feel, a sense that though the tale and the language may be of a period, the impact of immigrants on a tight community and of the seething feelings within a family are as relevant today as when he wrote it. However, in a slow and ponderous first act, the reflections on the floor, stylised movement of chairs and balletic appearances of Louis, a minor character, are a little distracting rather than illuminating and leave many unanswered questions. The intimacy of a small claustrophobic poor New York flat under the Brooklyn Bridge in which much of the action is set is lost in this open stage.

It is only in the second act that Miller’s writing explodes into action and grabs you by the throat as the characters spiral out of control toward a grisly conclusion and you begin to see why his plays are so engaging and powerful. Like the central characters in his earlier works of Death of Salesman and The Crucible, Eddie and Beatrice - who seem an honest and hard-working couple - are destroyed by the circumstances that they create and gradually lose control of. They invite two male immigrants from Italy to illegally live in their small home and when his niece, Catherine appears to fall for one, Rodolfo, the underlying tensions within the family are exposed and fuel the fires. The intensity and passion of those closing scenes draws you in to the characters, so you become less aware of the staging, even accepting the Kensington Gore that bubbles up through the stage in the powerful and dramatic conclusion. It is those moments that make this worthwhile and draw the ecstatic applause from the audience at the end.

The play revolves around Eddie, played with simmering tension and hidden passions by Jonathan Slinger. He is required to carefully navigate the pathway between caring, protective husband and guardian to frustrated and angry host with just enough simmering sexual tension for us to understand how he feels and how his heartfelt, good intentions become overwhelmed by jealousy and revenge. He may not have the muscular stage presence to be expected of a longshoreman, but his intensity and up tightness displays the explosive tension hidden with him as he tries to guide Catherine. His wife, Beatrice (a very strong performance from Kirsty Bushell) is the peacemaker between him and the others he shares the flat with, torn by her frustrated love for him and her desire to support and allow Catherine to grow. The scenes between these two characters drive the narrative and hook us into the family situation.

We never quite feel the same strength of relationship between Rodolfo, the slightly effeminate blonde immigrant played by Luke Newberry who Eddie shelters and Rachelle Diedericks’s seventeen-year-old Catherine. We never believe that Rodolfo really does want to marry her for love rather than an American citizenship. We are never convinced that Catherine’s attraction to Rodolfo is more than teenage infatuation of the first boy she meets. We therefore side with Eddie in his assessment of the relationship when there would be more power in the narrative if we had more doubt as to who was correct. The framing of the story by a narrator in the ever-present character of Alfieri, played by Nancy Crane, the lawyer who offers advice to Eddie is somewhat diminished by not hearing all her words especially when she turns upstage. The intension was to draw a parallel with a Greek tragedy and the chorus who observe and comment on the action and the addition of a muscular ballet sequences by Elijah Holloway both fail to enlighten us on the situation.

This stripped back modern design is at odds with period feel of the language and characters. It distracts rather than focuses us on the situation. The sexual tensions that bubble under the surface throughout are too suppressed in the first act rather than being the catalyst for the explosive self-destructive responses in the second. In Death of a Salesman and The Crucible, we don’t need to be pointed to the modern parallels for the period action, the clarity of writing and the narrative does that for us and in A View from the Bridge, we would get the same if set in a shabby period flat under the Brooklyn Bridge . Instead, the directorial desire to update the vision and the Chichester’s huge thrust stage lessen the first act impact and it is only the extraordinary performances and Miller’s brilliant writing in the second that shows us what an excellent play this remains.

**** Four stars

Reviewed by: Nick Wayne

A View from the Bridge plays at Chichester Festival Theatre until 28 October before visiting Rose Theatre Kingston, with further information here.