Review: Director Ivo van Hove Up To His Old Tricks With Arthur Miller's A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE

In the early and middle decades of the 20th Century, when New York's artists and hipsters generally confined themselves to the limits of Greenwich Village, the city was more sharply divided into ethnic communities, led by elders from the old country maintaining traditional ways and values. The men would often all work in the same industry and the women would regularly survey the streets by popping their heads out of apartment windows and loudly gossiping with neighbors.

Everyone knew everyone else's business because that's the way the community protected its members, not necessarily legally, but certainly loyally.

It's this patchwork of insular communities Arthur Miller was writing about in his 1955 drama of dark lust, young love and betrayal, A View from the Bridge.

Modeled after ancient Greek tragedy, with a central character whose fatal flaw leads to his downfall, Miller originally planned to title it AN ITALIAN TRAGEDY. Set in the Italian Red Hook section of Brooklyn, the story takes place in an immigrant community where valuable dockyard jobs are controlled by organized crime and relatives from the old country, looking to make a better life for their families back home, are secretly harbored away from the authorities.

Belgian director Ivo van Hove first gained attention on this shore with moves like having Hedda Gabler douse herself with V8 juice and the title character of THE MISANTHROPE squeeze ketchup down his pants and fashion himself a toupee made of spaghetti. While there are no perishable food items involved with his Young Vic production of A View from the Bridge, now transferred to Broadway, his highly-stylized mounting, like many of his creations, seems to give his vision authority over the play's content. It's different, for sure, but enlightening? Not so sure.

The cold and stripped-down production has enough textual cuts that it can be called "A View From Abridged," The intermission is also abandoned. The action is played on set designer Jan Versweyveld's small white platform with on-stage arena seating added to the Lyceum Theatre's traditional proscenium set-up. The appearance could suggest a boxing ring or an operating theatre

There are no set pieces to distinguish the various locations and the barefoot actors wear designer An D'Huys' clothing that appears intentionally ambiguous to any period.

Acting as a Greek choral leader is the lawyer/narrator Alfieri, played by Michael Gould. Hulking Mark Strong plays longshoreman Eddie Carbone, whose relationship with his wife, Beatrice (Nicola Walker), is steadily dissolving as his attention turns toward his 17-year-old orphaned niece, Catherine (Phoebe Fox), to whom he's become a father figure. Though he's proud to secretly house his wife's two illegally working cousins, Marco (Michael Zegen) and Rodolpho (Russell Tovey), the budding romance between Catherine and the handsome, charming Rodolpho infuriates him so that he considers committing what, in his neighborhood, is the one unthinkable, unforgivable act.

While the director's concept seems set on invoking Greek tragedy, a vital component missing is Miller's scripted inclusion of a Greek chorus of neighbors. They don't need to do much, but their presence is a continual reminder of who Eddie has to answer to. His downfall comes from losing his good name, but with no community there to judge him, the moment has no emotional support.

The direction seems to greatly favor those seated on stage, and while Strong is admirably forceful, there seems to be a lack of subtlety that the director imposes throughout evening. Rather than let Eddie's desires slowly reveal themselves, he smacks us on the head with them. Also smacking the audience are the bombastic tones of designer Tom Gibbons' lugubrious soundscape, which is peppered with bits of Fauré's Requiem. Miller's fine play would be better served by allowing the actors to provide such subtext.

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