A CurtainUp Review
                       A View From the Bridge

     Meet Eddie Carbone (Anthony LaPaglia), his wife Bea (Allison Janney) and their
     seventeen-year-old niece Catherine (Brittany Murphy). This typical working class
     family of the Depression era. Their roles are clearly defined by their milieu and times,
     with the man always the ruler of his little realm. Yet within a few minutes of entering
     into their very ordinary world, you realize that what you see and hear masks an
     emotional land mine.

     Welcome to Arthur Miller's Greek Tragedy, American style -- the forty-two-year old A
     View From the Bridge , currently being given a wonderfully full-bodied revival at the
     Roundabout's Stage Right.

     In an essay entitled "Tragedy and the Common Man" Mr. Miller posited that it was
     possible to cast a modern man in the mode of a classic Greek tragedy. While the essay
     was published close on the heels of Death Of a Salesman, also a classic Everyman
     tragedy, it's A View From the Bridge that most closely emulates the traditional Greek
     model. The setting is the predominantly Sicilian-American occupied section of Brooklyn
     known as Red Hook. That community is every bit as bound by codes of justice and
     vengeance as those prevailing in Sophocles' Thebes. Eddie Carbone knows the rules
     that make treachery the worst of all crimes, but his incestuous passion for his niece
     drive him to betray the illegal immigrant kinsmen (Gabriel Olds-Rudolpho and Adam
     Trese-Marco) whose entry into the Carbone household turns out to be a ticking bomb.
     The immigration authorities, are fate's intractable Furies. A narrator-lawyer named
     Alfieri (Stephen Spinella ) functions as a Greek Chorus. More educated and yet part of
     the community, he tries to forestall the inevitably tragic ending even though he knows he
     is powerless to stop it.

     Miller, not content with a tragedy enveloping the Carbones and their kinsmen, extends
     the crime by planting two additional "submarines" (a once common term for illegal
     immigrants) so that the revenge Eddie sets in motion against one person rains a whole
     avalanche of destruction. Like many a classic tragic figure (including Shakespeare's
     Hamlet), Eddie's effort to get rid of the one man he perceives as his enemy, cannot
     control fate's ripple effect on Marco, Marco's family and the hapless additional
     underground boarders -- and, as importantly, his own standing in the tight-knit
     community.

     If all this sounds like a too overwrought melodrama, it is. Its foreshadowings include a
     classic first act weapon -- a knife used to peel an apple -- that any seasoned theater
     goer will expect to see again before the destined end. And yet, it remains a gripping
     theatrical experience that holds up surprisingly well in its current revival at the
     Roundabout.

     For starters, there's director Michael Mayer's strikingly staged production. The eight
     main players are supported by a large ensemble (23 actors) that makes the stage, and at
     times the orchestra aisles, teem with the hustle and bustle of life in "the shadow of the
     Bridge that faces New York." To evoke the play's time and place, David Gallo has left
     behind his puppet and paper cutout sensibility, (i.e. Bunny Bunny and Jackie ), to
     create a stark Hopper-like set, with a backdrop of the Brooklyn Bridge, beautifully lit by
     Kenneth Posner. Michael Kras's costume designs add to the authenticity of the
     production.

     There is also the pleasure of watching some truly exhilarating acting at work. Mr. Miller
     who has despaired publicly about the problems inherent in casting good actors with a
     genuine commitment to the stage should take heart from the splendid interpretation
     given to the key roles.

     Stephen Spinella who gets better in each role he undertakes, is convincing even though
     he's a bit young for the tough cigar smoking lawyer-narrator who looks into the "dark
     tunnels" of Eddie's eyes and wishes he could ring an alarm to stop his downfall.

     Anthony LaPaglia's Eddie is tender, self-defensive and self-evasive. As his young niece
     breaks free of his hold on her he becomes a raging bull. Instead of facing his own
     jealousy he increasingly sees and seeks loathsome traits in Rudolpho who has captured
     the love he can never have. Like Spinella he's somewhat too young. In his case his
     youthful and virile good looks detract from the dual battle raging within him, the
     attraction to Catherine coupled with the rising fear of an older man faced with
     diminishing virility. While Eddie's deteriorating sexual relationship with his wife is no
     doubt largely caused by his unstated incestuous yearning for his niece, the older man's
     fear about his ebbing virility is a fact. La Paglia is nevertheless gripping, especially
     when he converts his verbal anger at Rudolpho to physical conflict.

     Allison Janney, who was last seen as the glib, sophisticated ex-wife in last season's
     Present Laughter (see link to review below) is utterly convincing as the plain-spoken
     Bea. Her voice is sheer Brooklyn, her heart totally exposed as she struggles to save her
     marriage.

     Above all these fine actors have captured not only Miller's rich dialogue, but all the
     nuances in the pauses between the spoken words. To cite just a few examples: Eddie's
     fingers moving ever so slightly underneath Catherine's sweater in one of the first
     scenes. . .Bea's eyes as she watches her husband and niece and in the big climactic
     arrest scene.

     Happily, excellence extends right through the ranks of the supporting players. Brittany
     Murphy, while not quite on a par with the above-mentioned actors, nevertheless plays
     Catherine with an endearing air of innocence that makes you understand her need to
     hold onto Eddie's love even as she needs to break free of it. Gabriel Olds is an equally
     endearing Rudolpho and Adam Trese is terrific as the strong-as-an-ox Marco. He is
     particularly good in the tension-filled finale of Act 1, when he uses his strength to lift a
     heavy chair and thereby establishes himself as his brother Rudolpho's protector.

     We come away from this play feeling great sympathy for all the characters, a sympathy
     best summed up in Alfieri's final comment:

          Most of the time now we settle for half and I like it better. But the truth is
          holy, and even as I know how wrong he was and his death useless, I
          tremble for, I confess that something perversely pure calls to me from his
          memory--not purely good, but himself, purely, for he allowed himself to be
          wholly known and for that I think I will love him more than all my sensible
          clients.

     Seeing this middle-aged play also brings to mind Paula Vogel's How I Learned to
     Drive (see link to review below) which also deals with forbidden passion growing out of
     a genuinely caring relationship between an uncle and niece . As Miller has been widely
     referred to as Ibsen's heir, Ms. Vogel is one of our newer talents carrying on Miller's
     tradition of writing plays that dare to be serious and disturbing.