A View from the BridgeWritten by Arthur Miller
Directed by Gregory Mosher
When: Saturday, February 13, 2010, 8pm
Where: Cort Theater
What: Drama, Professional Theater, Broadway
I'll readily admit that the only reason I went to see this is because Scarlett Johannson was in it (that, and the fact that balcony tickets were under $40). I really didn't know much about it and in the minimal "research" I did before going to see the play, I read that it was Arthur Miller's "modern" take on a Greek tragedy.
Complete with a Greek chorus of one (in this case the narrator is Alfieri, a lawyer that a character confides in), A View from the Bridge focuses on an Italian family of three in Brooklyn in the 1950s. Eddie Carbone (Liev Schreiber) and his wife Beatrice (Jessica Hecht -- best known to me as the woman who stole Ross's wife away from him on the tv show Friends) have been raising his niece Catherine (Johannson) after her parents died. Now, Catherine is older and is itching to get out of the house. However, Eddie doesn't want her to leave this secure environment.
When two of Beatrice's Italian cousins illegally sneak into the country, Eddie agrees to allow them to stay in their house. He doesn't plan on the fact that Catherine will fall in love with one of them -- the young Rodolpho. As Catherine and Rodolpho begin to plan for a wedding, Eddie's true feelings begin to surface -- and perhaps an underlying incestuous feeling is the reason why Eddie so greatly wishes his niece not to leave the household. This being somewhat reminiscent of a Greek tragedy, I don't need to tell you that things don't exactly end happily.
Unfortunately, I felt that the play itself fell a little flat. Perhaps it could've been the balcony seating, but I never really felt engaged with the story. The use of a narrator who spoke directly to the audience struck me as a bit odd and off-putting (although it certainly keeps with the Greek characteristics). The narrator just seemed completely unnecessary -- cut out the character and the flow would've been much smoother. Maybe it's just that I watched the play at the end of a long day, but I found the whole thing to be a tad dry. I didn't really see any deep underlying message here and it didn't stimulate my mind in the slightest.
Certainly, my issues with the play don't have a thing to do with the actors. I thought Scarlett Johannson did herself plenty proud. She pulled out the New Yawk accent I've seen her tackle in various SNL clips and she nails it. Her Catherine is a difficult role (torn between her family and her new beau) and perhaps she's a tad too old to playing a naive eighteen year-old, but I genuinely forgot that I was watching a "movie star." Jessica Hecht is also quite good. Apparently, she's done quite a bit of stage work and she was incredibly comfortable up there. She throws out a guttural scream towards the end of the play that kind of shocked me to my core.
Liev Schreiber is the star, though. From the reviews I've read of this play after I returned home, he's being called one of the best theater actors of this generation and I could certainly see why. While he was maybe too young to playing the worn-down Eddie, Schreiber exudes a believable gruffness that succeeds at transporting the audience back to the 1950s with his spoken words alone.
Just a side note: on the technical side, I enjoyed the revolving set (although I'm certain this has been done before, I think this is the first time I've seen such a set) and I thought that the "street" set was beautifully simplistic, making great use of the stage, horizontally and vertically.
So, unfortunately, there's really nothing wrong with this production except the story itself.
Complete with a Greek chorus of one (in this case the narrator is Alfieri, a lawyer that a character confides in), A View from the Bridge focuses on an Italian family of three in Brooklyn in the 1950s. Eddie Carbone (Liev Schreiber) and his wife Beatrice (Jessica Hecht -- best known to me as the woman who stole Ross's wife away from him on the tv show Friends) have been raising his niece Catherine (Johannson) after her parents died. Now, Catherine is older and is itching to get out of the house. However, Eddie doesn't want her to leave this secure environment.
When two of Beatrice's Italian cousins illegally sneak into the country, Eddie agrees to allow them to stay in their house. He doesn't plan on the fact that Catherine will fall in love with one of them -- the young Rodolpho. As Catherine and Rodolpho begin to plan for a wedding, Eddie's true feelings begin to surface -- and perhaps an underlying incestuous feeling is the reason why Eddie so greatly wishes his niece not to leave the household. This being somewhat reminiscent of a Greek tragedy, I don't need to tell you that things don't exactly end happily.
Unfortunately, I felt that the play itself fell a little flat. Perhaps it could've been the balcony seating, but I never really felt engaged with the story. The use of a narrator who spoke directly to the audience struck me as a bit odd and off-putting (although it certainly keeps with the Greek characteristics). The narrator just seemed completely unnecessary -- cut out the character and the flow would've been much smoother. Maybe it's just that I watched the play at the end of a long day, but I found the whole thing to be a tad dry. I didn't really see any deep underlying message here and it didn't stimulate my mind in the slightest.
Certainly, my issues with the play don't have a thing to do with the actors. I thought Scarlett Johannson did herself plenty proud. She pulled out the New Yawk accent I've seen her tackle in various SNL clips and she nails it. Her Catherine is a difficult role (torn between her family and her new beau) and perhaps she's a tad too old to playing a naive eighteen year-old, but I genuinely forgot that I was watching a "movie star." Jessica Hecht is also quite good. Apparently, she's done quite a bit of stage work and she was incredibly comfortable up there. She throws out a guttural scream towards the end of the play that kind of shocked me to my core.
Liev Schreiber is the star, though. From the reviews I've read of this play after I returned home, he's being called one of the best theater actors of this generation and I could certainly see why. While he was maybe too young to playing the worn-down Eddie, Schreiber exudes a believable gruffness that succeeds at transporting the audience back to the 1950s with his spoken words alone.
Just a side note: on the technical side, I enjoyed the revolving set (although I'm certain this has been done before, I think this is the first time I've seen such a set) and I thought that the "street" set was beautifully simplistic, making great use of the stage, horizontally and vertically.
So, unfortunately, there's really nothing wrong with this production except the story itself.
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