Broadway Theater Review: A View from the Bridge

Phoebe Fox, Mark Strong and Nicola Walker. Photo: Jan Versweyveld

A Different View of A View from the Bridge

By Lauren Yarger

Ivo van Hove is fast becoming one of my favorite directors. Anyone who can take a play like Arthur Miller's  A View from the Bridge and make it riveting, to me is a director to watch.

The play was revived on Broadway in 2010, but even Liev Schreiber and big-time film star Scarlett Johnasson weren't enough to make that story interesting for me. Every time I have read it or seen it I have wondered why people produce it. So I wasn't too excited to hear yet another revival was being staged this season (to coincide with the playwright's 100th birthday celebrations). But I'm glad it was.

This production comes to Broadway direct from two completely sold-out engagements in London, where it swept the 2015 Olivier Awards winning for Best Revival, Best Director, and Best Actor (Mark Strong), Van Hove's vision is drastically different. The characters are barefoot, to begin with, and walk around a stark cement-like set (designed by  Jan Versweyveld, who also does the Lighting Design) that evokes images of Greek tragedies -- or at least of the play Metamorphoses. And doesn't that seem appropriate?

To top that off, audience members are seated right up on either side of the stage for an up-close view of the bloodbath that overtakes the Carbone family in Brooklyn (and I do mean literal bloodbath -- that cement structure turns out to have a more sinister purpose than just  holding water...).

Eddie Carbone (Mark Strong) struggles with an inappropriate attraction to his young niece and ward, Catherine (Phoebe Fox). His wife, Beatrice (Nicola Walker) is aware of it and tries to help her niece gain some independence from under Eddie's watchful eye.

He doesn't approve when she starts dating Rodolpho (Russell Tovey , The History Boys), a cousin of Beatrice's, who along with his brother, Marco (Michael Zegen), arrive in the US (illegally) to find work with Eddie, who is a longshoreman.

Tragedy ensures when Eddie is unable to get a grip on his feelings about Catherine. Richard Hansell, a member of the original Young Vic company, reprises his role as Louis, a friend of Eddie's. Rounding out the cast are Michael Gould as Alfieri and Thomas Michael Hammond as Officer.

I might not be exactly sure why all the characters are barefoot, but I'll tell you I was engaged thinking about it for all two hours -- and even after I left the theater -- something I can't say about any other  versions of the play I have seen. I usually don't tend toward avant-garde theater, which some might think this is -- messing with a classic, after all -- but in this case, I say well done.

A View from the Bridge plays at the Lyceum Theatre, 149 West 45th St., NYC through Feb. 21.

Additional credits:
Costume Design by An D’Huys, Sound Design by Tom Gibbons.

FAMILY-FRIENDLY FACTORS:
-- God's name taken in vain
-- Mature themes