<\/p>\n
Reviewed by Mart\u1f77n Hern\u00e1ndez<\/strong> RECOMMENDED<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n In the early 1950s, playwright Arthur Miller and his friend Elia Kazan pitched Miller\u2019s dockworker-based screenplay\u00a0The Hook<\/em>, with Kazan as the proposed director, to Columbia Pictures\u2019 boss Harry Cohn. When Cohn \u2013 and the FBI \u2013 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 \u201cnamed names\u201d 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.<\/p>\n From this jumble of events arose Miller\u2019s timeless 1956 tragedy exploring the bleak consequences of patriarchy, betrayal, and the U.S. government \u2014 themes vigorously explored in director Mike Reilly\u2019s taut production. As usual, underlying Miller\u2019s 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?<\/p>\n 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 \u201cthe gullet of New York, swallowing the tonnage of the world.\u201d It\u2019s a dehumanizing arena that can flay Eddie\u2019s 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\u2019s late sister.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s emotional distancing from her.<\/p>\n With Italy\u2019s post-World War II economy still in a shambles, Beatrice\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n Abruzzo\u2019s Eddie and Chase\u2019s 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 \u201cI want my respect,\u201d 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\u2019s strange actions towards her but eventually discovering the strength to confront them.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s unassuming enemies, especially Janzen in key moments with Eddie. And Lill\u2019s amazing voice adds to the credibility of Catherine as she\u2019s swayed by Rodolpho\u2019s serenades.<\/p>\n Designer Stephanie Kerley Schwartz\u2019 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\u2019 apartment as well as their neighborhood.<\/p>\n Ruskin Theater Group, 3000 Airport Ave., Santa Monica. Fri.-Sat., 8 pm, Sun., 2 pm; thru Oct. 8. 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\nRuskin Theatre<\/strong>
\nThrough October 8<\/strong><\/p>\n