A BRIDGE TO GREAT THEATER
Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge may be a small play physically, with a single drab set and just five significant characters. But it builds from a sympathetic beginning to a shattering violent conclusion in the spot-on production played to the hilt at the North Coast Repertory Theatre.
The play is set in 1955 in the waterfront area of Brooklyn in the apartment of Eddie Carbone, a longshoreman whose household consists of his wife Beatrice and his orphaned 17-year-old niece Catherine. Domestic storm warnings appear early in the play with intimations that Eddie carries an illicit interest in Catherine that he doesn’t consciously recognize (Eddie already apparently suffers from a sexual dysfunction).
Margot White & Richard Baird
The emotional tensions accelerate with the appearance of two of Beatrice’s cousins from Italy who enter as illegal immigrants to live in the Carbone apartment while the men seek jobs. The older Marco is a serious man who urgently seeks employment so he can send money back to his impoverished wife and their three young children in Sicily. The younger Rodolpho is a fun-loving lad who wants to settle in the United States permanently and live the good life.
Richard Baird, Margot White, Coby Rogers, Marie Zolezzi, & Lowell Byers
Catherine and Rodolpho soon fall in love, arousing Eddie’s fury. Eddie accuses Rodolpho of being gay and of wooing Catherine so he can acquire an American passport. Incapable of acknowledging his sexual jealousy for Catherine, Eddie thinks of reporting the cousins to the Immigration Bureau, even though in Eddie’s Italian world, that is an unforgivable act of betrayal.
(front) Coby Rogers, Richards Baird, (back) Marie Zolezzi & Margot White
Miller charts Eddie’s psychological disintegration as a portrait of an uncomplicated man who is complicit in his own destruction. Beatrice and Catherine can’t diagnose his deterioration until it is too late. Meanwhile, the audience sits fascinated and appalled as Eddie’s world collapses around him.
Coby Rogers, Richard Baird & Marie Zolezzi
The play has been compared to an ancient Greek tragedy with the central character caught in the fatal grip of circumstances he cannot escape. Director David Ellenstein sensitively guides the audience through the narrative that resembles a slow motion train wreck Eddie is too emotionally distraught to avoid.
(front) Richard Baird & Coby Rogers;
(back) Marie Zolezzi, Margot White, & Lowell Byers
Richard Baird‘s Eddie is carrying so much psychological baggage he eventually self-destructs. Margot White‘s Beatrice loves her husband, and recognizes his subterranean lust for Catherine, yet is helpless to deflect her husband’s obsession. Marie Zolezzi‘s Catherine is caught between her affection for the man who gave her a home and her desire to live a fresh life away from him. Lowell Byrs as Marco and Coby Rogers as Rodolpho are admirable as the two illegal immigrants who unintentionally brought Eddie’s resentments to their crisis point.
Frank Corrado
Perhaps to reinforce View as a slice of Greek tragedy, the playwright injects an Italian-American lawyer named Alfieri (well done by Frank Corrado) to speak directly to the audience, narrating bits of the action and occasionally philosophizing. Matthew Salazar-Thompson and Steve Froehlich contribute nicely in multiple small roles.The veteran North Coast design staff has created an exemplary single set working class environment. The usual bows go to Marty Burnett (sets), Matthew Novotny (lighting), Elisa Benzoni (costumes), and Ian Scot (sound).
photos by Aaron Rumley
A View from the Bridge
North Coast Repertory Theatre
987 Lomas Santa Fe Drive in Solana Beach
Wed & Thurs at 7; Fri at 8; Sat at 2 & 8; Sun at 2 & 7; Wed at 2 (Oct.7); Fri at 2 (Sept. 13)
ends on Oct 6, 2024 EXTENDED to October 13, 2024
for tickets ($52-$74), call 858.481-1055 or visit North Coast Rep