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A remarkable view of tragedy
Family fortunes: Jonathan Guy Lewis (Eddie) James Rastall (Rodolpho), Teresa Banham (Beatrice) Daisy Boulton (Catherine) and Philip Cairns (Marco) A view from the bridge
Grand Theatre, Wolverhampton
**** THE USA in the 1950s was a land of
opportunity, a land of milk and honey with streets paved with gold or so
it seemed to the dirt-poor immigrants from southern Italy where jobs
were as scarce as honest politicians. Menfolk, particularly from Sickly, were smuggled
in illegally on ships to work, staying with relatives, friends or
friends of friends, paying off the mob, their travel agents, and sending
whatever they could home to their families. The illegals were known as submarines and many
arrived and stayed in Red Hook, the dockland area of Brooklyn, at one
time one of the busiest and largest ports in the world, and one of the
poorest and worst neighbourhoods in America. It is here that Eddie Carbone, a longshoreman, or
docker, of Sicilian descent, scrapes a living and puts food on the
table, most of the time, for wife Beatrice and his 17 year-old orphaned
niece Catherine. We know theirs is to be a tragic tale, we are
told so from the very beginning by Mr Alfieri, played with a sort of
matter of fact, resignation by Michael Brandon, who acts as a sort of
Greek chorus. This is more than a theatrical device though; playwright
Arthur Miller, who worked on the same docks for a while, took the basic
plot from a lawyer who worked among the longshoremen who swore it was
true. Into their lives come Beatrice’s cousins, Marco,
tall, dark, immensely strong and brooding, and Rodolpho, blond,
flamboyant, and, dangerous in the manly world of dockers, a little
effeminate. Dockers don’t sing, dance, cook or . . . make dresses. It sounds like a lost verse of I’m a
lumberjack, but this is no laughing matter. It sets him apart and
ultimately provides the fuse to set off the explosion to come when
Rodolpho’s friendship with Catherine grows into dating without first
seeking Eddie’s permission. And it is Eddie’s relationship with Catherine
that is central to the whole play. Catherine is a naïve innocent, still
a baby, kept that way by her Uncle Eddie. At first it appears he is
overprotective partly because of a promise made to his dead sister
Nancy, Catherine’s mother, to look after her, and partly the extra
protection of a daughter by a father, even if only a surrogate one. But as the play goes on Eddie's relationship, or
a Now she is growing into a woman she is no longer
Eddie’s little girl any more. Anywhere she goes he sees danger from boys
and men and any boy she meets is immediately deemed no good; and that
seals the fate of her relationship with Rodolpho even before t starts
and, more disturbing, begs the question of where does protection end and
jealousy begin.
When Beatrice asks when she is going to be a wife
again we realise that all is not well in the marital bed - and hasn’t
been for three months; Eddie’s sexual desires, even if suppressed, might
well lie elsewhere. Jonathan Guy Lewis gives a masterful performance
as the proud, hard working Eddie, master of his own house, and there is
a terrible fasciantion as we chart his gradual descent and breakdown as
natural events spark his unnatural reaction until the final, sad
inevitable scene. Eddie, a once decent family man, wracked by
anger, jealously, frustration and helplessness, has lost everything,
including his reputation. With his life in ruins he wants for just one
thing, he wants his name back, something he lost for ever with his fatal
act of betrayal. Honour is everything for Eddie and by the end he has
none left. He is balanced by Teresa Banham excelling as
Beatrice, at first the loving wife, then attempting gently to release
Eddie’s grip on Catherine, such as when she persuades him to allow his
niece to leave school and take a well paid clerical job, and then
telling him a few home truths as his world falls apart. Despite everything though he is her husband, and
she shows a deep loyalty and love by staying with him even at the end. Daisy Boulton gives a fine performance as
Catherine, the inexperienced teen, who looks to Eddie as a father, and,
because of him, still sees herself as a child until the arrival of
Rodolpho who awakens the woman hidden inside her. James Rastall as Rodolpho and Philip Cairns and
Marco give us very different brothers. Marco is brooding, a family man
with a wife and three children starving back in Scicily, the eldest
child suffering from tuberculosis. He wants work a few years to send
money home then return to his family. Rodolpho, platinum blond, single, fancy free and
an outsider in the macho-only world he has entered wants to make a life
in America. There are hints he is gay, which, along with his desire to
become an American citizen, and marriage is one way to achieve it, all
adds fuel to Eddie’s already jealous hatred of Rololpho, or indeed
anyone, who tries to take Catherine from hm.
As a play, aided by Brandon’s commentary as the
lawyer, this is a train crash in slow motion, an inevitable tragedy
unfolding beautifully before us and despite being almost 60 years old,
it premiered in London in 1956, it still has themes that are relavent
today. Liz Ascroft has produced a wonderfully flexible set with ricketty telegraph poles vanishing into the distance beyond a backdrop of a tenement building and its fire escape, setting a scene of run down deprivation. In front we have a few tables and chairs which
provide the Carbone home, the waterfront and Alfieri’s office, which
means scenes merge one to another without a pause using Paul Pyant’s
lighting as its physical delimiters. Stephen Unwin’s direction builds the pace and
tension to the dramatic final scene. The bridge is the Brooklyn Bridge
and the view is not across the East River to Manhattan but backwards and
down into the poverty and slums of Red Hook, the view of the audience. There are certain companies who have earned a
reputation for consistently delivering an outstanding production.
Touring Consortium Theatre Company is such a company and Miller’s
classic can only enhance that reputation. To 28-03-15. Roger Clarke
24-03-15
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least how he sees Catherine becomes more suspect, especially where boys
are concerned. Catherine has been wrapped in cotton wool, kept at home,
away from boys and the world outside, treated, admittedly in a kindly
way, like a young child.