Love, family, honor and survival, all of which are cornerstones of humanity, are at stake in Arthur Miller’s tragic play “A View from the Bridge.”
Mother Road’s production makes for gripping, powerful theater. It passionately conveys the spirit and depth of the play, compelling the audience to watch as a world unravels before its eyes.
Mother Road thoroughly transforms the Filling Station into a slice of 1952 Brooklyn. Having entered this world, it’s hard not to care deeply for Italian-American family trying to live in it.
Longshoreman Eddie Carbone and his wife Beatrice raised their niece, Catherine, and struggled to support her. Eventually, she reaches adulthood, finds love and leaves to start her own life, but Eddie can’t let go.
“A View from the Bridge” captures the family’s inert fear of this impending-yet-necessary change, and movingly depicts the bitter consequences of Eddie’s obsession.
The 50s Brooklyn suburb of Red Hook is vividly brought to life under Vic Browder and Julia Thudium’s detailed direction. Kudos to Browder’s set design and Tom Struder’s lights, which create so many levels and worlds that one feels as though he has squeezed the entirety of Red Hook into the theater. Costumes by Paula Steinberg and dialect coaching by Steve Corona also largely contribute to creating the world the characters inhabit.
The cast uniformly shines in this terrifically detailed, vibrant sandbox. Each performance is nothing less than stellar. Nicholas Ballas awes as Alfieri, a lawyer who witnesses and later becomes involved in the tragedy. Alfieri serves as chorus and narrator, and Ballas finds magic and truth in Miller’s words. Julia Harris is also wonderful as the niece, Catherine, making you feel every one of her character’s conflicting emotions and desires.
William R. Stafford deserves special praise for his role as the troubled patriarch at the heart of the play, Eddie Carbone. Many dramatic heroes have the flaw of hubris or ambition, yet Carbone’s tragic weakness is an excess of love.
He loves his niece too much, and this single trait becomes the catalyst for unimaginable suffering. Yet Stafford plays Eddie with such honesty and clarity that you never fail to understand what he’s doing, or why. Even when the character’s actions become despicable, you feel for him.
Perhaps the hardest, most crucial part of presenting a tragedy is making audience members care as much about the people responsible as they do for the victims. Mother Road’s “A View from the Bridge” does this effortlessly. The sense of dread at what is coming becomes so real that even the most harmless situations feel dangerous and uncertain. One realizes very early on that things will not end well.
While Arthur Miller’s “A View from the Bridge” deals with an exact moment in our cultural history, its themes and message are universal. Like the oldest stories, “A View from the Bridge” speaks to our humanity — the parts of us that never really change, from generation to generation. Mother Road’s excellent production suggests that the play will always be worth seeing.
*A View from The Bridge *
by Arthur Miller
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Mother Road Theatre Company
The Filling Station
1024 Fourth St. S.W.
Thursdays, Fridays at 8 p.m.
Saturdays at 6 p.m
Sundays at 2 p.m.
Through Oct. 2
General Admission $18, Students, seniors $12
fillingstationabq.com
