'A View from the Bridge' (Everyman Theatre) - Play review

The Everyman is specified in the title of this as I'm going to see another 'A View from the Bridge' in a few weeks at the Young Vic, the one starring Mark Strong as Eddie and directed by Ivo van Hove, who also directed the version of 'Antigone' which I watched at the Barbican last night. It's been slightly over a week since I saw this 'A View from the Bridge' at the Everyman Theatre as I had a very busy week this week - I might even write a blog post to relate it as a lot went down, as it were. Luckily for myself, as I have 4 reviews to write today/this weekend, I only wrote 4 pages of notes during the performance, so this review shouldn't take so long (oh gosh writing up 'Antigone's going to be a slog). But without further ado - a review of 'A View from the Bridge' at the Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham.

A lovely view of the bridge.

The party I went with were all A-level drama students, studying the play as the A2 paper involves writing a section of the play as if you're directing it. The trip was optional - as mentioned previously we're also going to see Ivo van Hove's production next Tuesday - it was just for the most enthusiastic students to get a more well-rounded view of possible interpretations of the play. That being said, reception of the play was quite varied within the group. I was personally in the camp who had been pleased by it, there was also a camp whose opinion could be described with the sound 'meh', and a camp whose opinion approached middling disdain.



Unarguably, some of the characters were played with the finesse of a brick, but a strong protagonist and deuteragonists effectively carried the play. The story was told faithfully, not necessarily interestingly different, but at a level of realism which approached naturalism - most effective for first-time watchers or people studying the play, by putting out on stage exactly what Arthur Miller put down on page.

Excuse my phone's dreadful camera.

The set was a rather fascinating affair (see above). That large flat which looks like a tenement front was actually scaleable: the fire escape ladder actually worked, and characters could climb up to the apartment on the top floor. An impressive spectacle, albeit only used for one scene, which made it seem somewhat superfluous to the action. Having the exterior of the building behind the apartment interior, and the street-front running through the interior, and Alfieri's desk 'somewhere to the right of it all' made distinctions of place difficult to maintain, though impressively dramatic Headlong-style lighting made the distinctions more distinct. The cyclorama was artful and gave an insight into something I'd never really thought about - having been to New York it's hard to imagine that the surrounding area was once undeveloped, slummy, and having the wasteland of Redhook constantly in the background was a more effective way of reminding the audience of the overarching poverty of the setting than a dingy naturalistic set would.

You can't see it because the camera on my phone is awful, but between two telegraph poles is the glowing form of the not-yet-dingy-blue Statue of Liberty, glowing, presumably, with the light of the 50 bright stars themselves, a beacon of hope in the bleak. This production got symbolism really well - they truly had a grasp on the meaning of the tragedy, or at least the closest grasp one can get to the true meaning of the Eddie's tragedy. The skilful intermingling of the ancient Greek mythology at the base of the text's meaning with the Christian theology superimposed over it was satisfying if you kept an eye out for it. Alfieri, as ancient Greek chorus, ambassador between the olympians, the tragic protagonist and the audience, lit from above like an imposing old-testament angel with the last few strains of the Verdi Requiem's 'Requiem Aeternam' tinkling in the distance while Eddie, Beatrice and Katherine form a Golgotha tableau for Eddie's Dionysian downfall - the ending was certainly the strong point of the entire play, especially in terms of that supernatural symbolism, but it had been built up through the entirety.

The acting was a game of two halves - not that Act 1 and Act 2 were good or bad, but that half of the protagonists were good and half were not. Eddie and Alfieri were noticeably strong actors, while Catherine and Rodolpho were noticeably shit, and Beatrice and Marco were both 'good' - not as strong as Eddie and Alfieri, but not as shit as Catherine and Rodolpho. Eddie was very grounded in his character, and his rage was actually frightening. A cleverly chosen signifier of rolling up his sleeves helped raise the tension, but mostly because he fully inhabited the character he was playing so that every signifying action came straight from Eddie. He possibly stepped down a little too quickly when facing the accusations in the street, but overall his decisions were apt. Alfieri was my personal favourite for the production, he was just so believable as a New York lawyer (or lawya), with an impeccable accent. His one flash of rage was too vapid and too quick to pass, as I've always thought of Alfieri as level-headed, so if he were too get angry it'd have to be all or nothing, but other than that again a truly believable and well-grounded character.

Beatrice, she lost her accent a couple of times, and she had a problem with playing comedy, but on the whole a respectable and dignified portrayal. The problem with the comedy she played was that comedy is inherent in the script in parts, but B tended to play it outwards and mine comedy from the audience, which was unnecessary, we would have got the joke without her having to weaken the illusion of the story by breaking the fourth wall. However, in creating B as a person, the actress succeeded in the delicate task of simultaneously portraying and hiding B's struggle between her duty to her niece and her perceived duty to her husband. Marco isn't a particularly 'big' role, but as the saying goes there are no small parts, just small actors, and the actor faithfully filled his character's mold as the quiet but strong dock-worker. He clearly had a keen grasp of Marco's sense of duty and honour, and the tension in the hanging silence after Marco spat in Eddie's face was too thick to be cut with a knife.

Catherine and Rodolpho, however. It was an excellent masterclass in how to turn characters intended to be delicate psychological studies into oafish caricatures. Catherine was positively bearish - I know Catherine is supposed to be young, but playing her as an overbearing 14 year old is certainly wrong. A combination of immaturity and over-articulation of subtle emotions made her completely over the top. On top of this, almost adding to a lit of sins, her accent. Honestly, it would've been better for her to just stick to an English accent than to bring forth the deformed bastard dialect she attempted to create. She honestly sounded Russian, but followed Rodolpho into Italian whenever he was around. In fairness, I suppose Italy is closer to New York than Russia if you're looking at the world West to East, so maybe that was closer to what it should have been. I should point out at this juncture than Eddie and especially Alfieri never slipped from their accents. I suppose Rodolpho's accent was Italian, although a stereotypical, exaggerated, over the top Italian. And that was his entire character. If i had to say which was worse of the too, though Catherine was still bad, I'd have to say it was Rodolpho. He didn't have to be overtly ridiculous, most of the point of his character is that he isn't overtly ridiculous and Eddie picks out small things in his obsession and thinks that Rodolpho is gay. That's the point. And he missed it. By a long shot. Some of my family are Italian, I know that Italians do not gesture like that. Yes, Italians make hand gestures when they talk but not that bloody many Rodolpho. I feared for the safety of those in his proximity - this Rodolpho could have easily won the boxing match just by talking at Eddie, his hands would have found his face somehow.

7/10 - the play wasn't original but was faithful to the story, and a few terrible actors were outweighed by the majority of good ones.

My Facebook page