Goodman’s A View from the Bridge a Pinnacle of Performance

The Goodman’s production of Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge fits a lot of bills.  Typical of Miller, the writing is exceptional.  Then you notice its deceptively intricate plot.  And as the minutes click by, the play’s characters take on the density of a juicy porter house steak.   All perfect ingredients for tragedy at its most exquisite. 

You look at and listen to Eddie (Ian Bedford) and you think, OK, he’s got good sense and a clue.  1950’s blue collar. Straight shooter.  Pragmatic.  Virtually incapable of naïveté.   Somebody who’d say, “Most people ain’t people” with all the sagacity and truth of Sophocles.   Miller proceeds to gently peel away the layers of Eddie psyche to the point where we begin to see what can drive a sane man to make a catastrophic decision.  In Eddie’s case; it’s a forbidden woman child.

Director Ivo Van Hove makes sure to hint at low simmering tensions from the jump.  There’s something not quite right in the way Eddie relates to his wife, Beatrice (Andrus Nichols).  And there’s something not quite right about the way he relates to her orphaned niece Katie (Catherine Combs), now 18 and not so unwittingly ripe.

His wife has asked and he’s agreed, resignedly, to also provide sanctuary to two of her cousins from Italy.  In today’s parlance, they’d be undocumented economic refugees, escaping the privation brought from a lack of gainful work in their home country after the war.  With his wife and niece, Eddie’s flat is already small.  The only sleeping space is the living room floor.

Marco’s (Brandon Espinoza) and Rodolpho’s (Daniel Abeles) arrival acts as an accelerant; exposing passions and revealing primal instincts of revenge and jealously.  At this, both the playwright and the director excel.  Gratefully wrapped in her uncle’s bottomless love and attention, Katie wants to please as a child wishes to please a hero.  She wants to lock in acceptance and approval. Marco, the more determined of the cousins, has been forced to emigrate so that he can send money back to his wife and children.  It will keep them from starving. Rodolpho simply wants to a chance at building a life in a country where a man can find work and sustain himself.   For Eddie, the deal did not include the sting of cupid’s arrow.

Miller’s most beautiful irony is that there is nothing out of kilter when Katie and Rodolpho slip into love.  At first, they’re just two young people enjoying being young together.   But they’re both charming and everyday lovely.  The closer they grew; the more enraged stalwart Eddie becomes.  By saying “She’s too young”, he was really saying, she’s mine.

Rage, once it becomes entrenched, is particularly dangerous because it knows no limits.  Destruction becomes the only objective; even though it may consume you as well as your foe.   That was the road Eddie chose.  Rather than opt for the expected outcome, Miller takes the finale to a place you would not have assumed and makes his morality tale all the more impactful for doing so.

Van Hove reimagines classics and takes them out of the confines of their cultural context.  Written in the 50’s with Red Hook Brooklyn as its geographical base, Van Hove strips away time and place and leaves only that brusque Brooklyn accent as an identifying marker.  The stage is industrial bare.  Costumes neutral and irrelevant.  Focus is exclusively on action and dialog which is perhaps why Van Hove also decided to take the play back to its original format.  One act.  There is no escape from the coming storm, no diversions to blunt its blow.

A View from the Bridge

Sept 9 – Oct 22, 2017

Goodman Theater

170 N. Dearborn St.

Chicago, IL   60601