A View from The Bridge

Reviewed by Martίn Hernández
Ruskin Theatre
Through October 8

RECOMMENDED

In the early 1950s, playwright Arthur Miller and his friend Elia Kazan pitched Miller’s dockworker-based screenplay The Hook, with Kazan as the proposed director, to Columbia Pictures’ boss Harry Cohn. When Cohn – and the FBI – wanted to change the corrupt union villains from Mafia thugs to Communist ones, Miller pulled out and the movie was scrapped. Later, during the anti-communist witch hunts conducted by the U.S. Congress, Kazan “named names” of suspected communists and fellow travelers, many of whom were blacklisted for years. Miller refused to do the same and was charged with contempt of Congress, but the charge was dismissed on appeal. Their friendship was shattered, and while they eventually reconciled, Miller and Kazan were never as close again.  

From this jumble of events arose Miller’s timeless 1956 tragedy exploring the bleak consequences of patriarchy, betrayal, and the U.S. government — themes vigorously explored in director Mike Reilly’s taut production. As usual, underlying Miller’s work is a forceful critique of capitalism, this time on a global scale, as undocumented immigrant characters flee their poor and exploited country for a better life in the U.S.A., only to learn that the scramble to survive here is more vicious than the one back home. Sound familiar?

Opening the play and serving as its narrator is local attorney Alfieri (Sal Viscuso), who introduces us to Eddie Carbone (a remarkable Ray Abruzzo), an Italian American longshoreman living in 1950s Red Hook, a working-class section of Brooklyn. Alfieri describes the docks where Eddie works as “the gullet of New York, swallowing the tonnage of the world.” It’s a dehumanizing arena that can flay Eddie’s body and soul, but he finds comfort in his devoted wife Beatrice (Kim Chase) and his loving niece Catherine (Aurora Leonard), the child of Beatrice’s late sister.

His meager home is his castle, his throne a worn-out chair, and his family the subjects of his benign monarchy. Eddie and Beatrice have raised Catherine since she was a kid, and Eddie still treats her like one, despite her being seventeen. Catherine innocently encourages his behavior and dotes on Eddie as a father figure. But underneath his paternal affection for Catherine are confusing passions that Beatrice hesitantly begins to interpret as the possible cause for Eddie’s emotional distancing from her.

With Italy’s post-World War II economy still in a shambles, Beatrice’s undocumented immigrant cousins, Marco (Jesse Janzen) and Rodolpho (Brandon Lill), are smuggled in by traffickers, and Eddie finds them work unloading cargo. He and his family welcome the brothers with open arms but also warn them to lay low so as not to attract immigration officials or their snitches. While the more serious Marco is married with a family back home, fun-loving Rodolpho is single, and soon he and Catherine are smitten with each other. Agitated over the budding romance and in denial over his unnatural emotions, Eddie desperately tries to keep Catherine under his irrational control.

Abruzzo’s Eddie and Chase’s Beatrice make for a poignant couple, facing emotions they have long concealed and getting tangled up as they try to convey them. Abruzzo is a quintessential Eddie, whose lament of “I want my respect,” has a special meaning coming from a working stiff who feels his goodwill is being abused. Chase emotes, with eyes and facial expressions, the wearied love of many a put-upon spouse. Leonard is a fragile Catherine, initially puzzled by Eddie’s strange actions towards her but eventually discovering the strength to confront them.

In his scenes with Abruzzo, Viscuso delivers his lines with an emotional vigor that is mostly lacking in his narration as the Greek Chorus. Despite their shaky accents, Lill and Janzen deliver commendable performances as Eddie’s unassuming enemies, especially Janzen in key moments with Eddie. And Lill’s amazing voice adds to the credibility of Catherine as she’s swayed by Rodolpho’s serenades. 

Designer Stephanie Kerley Schwartz’ set, with horizontal wooden planks for walls and a combination living and dining room upstage and streetlight and a stoop downstage, emphasize the claustrophobic nature of the Carbones’ apartment as well as their neighborhood.

Ruskin Theater Group, 3000 Airport Ave., Santa Monica. Fri.-Sat., 8 pm, Sun., 2 pm; thru Oct. 8. Running time:  two hours with an intermission. http://www.ruskingrouptheatre.com