‘View’ Reviewed

‘Catherine. If I take in my hands a little bird. And she grows and wishes to fly. But I will not let her out of my hands because I love her so much, is that right for me to do so?’

Rodolfo’s passionate utterance to Catherine in Act 2 acutely pinpoints the primary thematic idea within Arthur Miller’s masterpiece. What are we to make of a love so extreme that it borders on obsession? A love that compels you to entrap and control the one who captures your affection? Is such ‘love’ still a good thing? Is it even still love? Louis Catliff and his team boldly stepped up to the mark of exploring these questions to their full depth, in their actualisation of Arthur Miller’s play ‘A View from the Bridge’.

The play tells the story of Eddie Carbone (Gareth Owen), a longshoreman living in Brooklyn with his wife Beatrice (Elidh Mack) and her niece Catherine (Caitlin Morris). Eddie’s overprotectiveness of Catherine is apparent from the offset. However, as the plot progresses, it becomes clear that rather than an innocent, fatherly and protective affection, Eddie harbours an unnatural and obsessive fixation with Catherine. The play recounts the way in which this inner disposition affects, alienates and ruins the lives of all those around him, and ultimately destroys him himself.

The piece was a deeply suspenseful one, largely as a result of the character of the protagonist. Eddie’s unnerving, obsessive and sometimes comical inner disposition towards Catherine was made to be heavily exposed to the audience from very early on in the piece. This created a sense that tragic consequences were bound to ensue at any point thus formulating the relentless, pregnant air of suspense that is typical of Arthur Miller’s writing. The ‘View’ team should be praised for effectively realising this feature of the text.

Owen’s acting was a major asset to the production. His heavy set brow, and twitchy restlessness effectively conveyed the inner agony of a man obsessively clinging on to a ‘little bird’ that was slowly but surely taking flight. Further, he was accomplished in portraying the emotional weight that mounts upon Eddie’s back as the consequences of his tragic flaw start to pile up. Speaking of acting, although one or two of the minor performances were a tad problematic, performances were generally strong across the board.

Accents were okay. A handful of principles managed to capture the Brooklyn dialect reasonably well, some didn’t quite manage it but fell back on a general American accent and one or two of the principles’ native accents shimmered through their brazen attempts at the Brooklyn manner of speaking. Special credit must go to Jonathan Hewitt, whose accent was probably the best. He started off with an Italian accent that slowly became infused with a Brooklyn twang as the length of time he had spent in America grew. It was very impressive to see this detailed attention to character. Savage (playing the other foreign immigrant, Rodolfo) would have otherwise been deserving of this same applause, but unfortunately his infused accent arrived a little bit too early (namely as soon as his character had arrived in the country!) That being said, Savage gave an otherwise formidable performance with an impressive emotional display.

The group scenes were a feature of this production that truly stood out. Their fluidity, meticulous pacing and heavy use of movement made them deeply engaging to watch. One such example was the ultimate scene, which brought the production to a stunning, energetic and climactic ending (prior to Alfieri’s concluding words that is).

The show’s set has its pros and cons. It comprised of the living room area in the Carbone’s abode. Space was left in front of this set to represent an outside porch area, and within this same area was a further, miniature and square platform which functioned as the narrator’s office. On the one hand this set was very neat, with clearly segregated ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ areas that were seamlessly transitioned between by the actors and easy for the audience to comprehend. However, there were also some aesthetically displeasing features of this set: the floor was quite dirty; cello tape piecing parts of the set together was clearly visible; the divisions between the individual platforms that constituted the living room floor were not concealed by any kind of matting and nothing had been done to conceal the metal underworking of the narrator’s platform, which made it look like a piece of construction material fetched in from outside. In short, a lot of what should have been concealed was in plain view which slightly impacted the capacity of this set to conjure the illusion of a real-life setting. In addition, the space in front of the living room set was quite expansive, leaving the set as a whole feeling slightly bare. As pernickety as these criticisms might seem, it is little details like this that often decide what side of the professional-student boundary your production lies at.

In conclusion, Catliff and his team should be proud of their efforts. The dynamics of the piece were expertly choreographed, and the acting overall was very impressive indeed, particularly that of the tragic protagonist. Yes, there were a few issues, but there was certainly more to applaud than to criticize.