A View From The Bridge,

The Alhambra, Bradford

AS the general election looms and immigration remains a hot topic, Arthur Miller’s A View From The Bridge comes to The Alhambra.

Italian-American lawyer, Alfieri’s (Michael Brandon) opening monologue introduces us to the play’s setting and the area viewed from Miller’s titular bridge: Red Hook, once the site of one of the largest Hoovervilles, an area with a large Italian population and one of rampant crime and poverty.

Designer, Liz Ascroft’s multi-levelled set is simple but effective with minimal changes throughout.

Electricity pylons in the distance are backdropped while the fire exit of a building sits centre stage and two contrasting interiors are placed on either side: the inside of a domestic kitchen and a plush lawyer’s office. While three dock workers are freeze-framed stage left, Alfieri recalls client, Eddie Capone (Jonathan Guy Lewis).

Opening scenes of domestic equilibrium are soon to be shattered by two arrivals.

Eddie, his wife, Bea (Teresa Banham) and their niece Katy (Daisy Boulton) share daily news, when Bea’s two cousins unexpectedly arrive early from Sicily.

Both illegal immigrants fleeing poverty, Marco (Philip Cairns) and Rodolpho (James Rastall) are keen to fit in.

Marco is a man of integrity who has three kids and a wife he’s keen to send funds to.

However, Rodolpho is young, free and flirty, resulting in an overprotective Eddie instantly taking a dislike to him.

Director, Stephen Unwin has Alfieri string freeze-framed scenes together, talking directly to the audience, using the dates of memorable meetings with Eddie to cleverly structure the narrative.

Alfieri’s account both cautions and intrigues as he confesses he “could see every step coming like a dark figure in a hallway” and that Eddie’s “eyes were like tunnels - [he] almost wanted to call the police.”

Early on, warning bells ring when Eddie chastises seventeen year-old Katy for “walking wavy”.

Having been sheltered for most of her life, much to Eddie’s disgust Katy is instantly wooed by Rodolpho - despite a particularly poor rendition of Paper Doll.

Events that follow are fairly predictable but captivating nonetheless.

Equally strong and intense performances are fuelled by jealousy, macho rivalry, sexual tension and homoerotic undertones but punctuated by occasional moments of light relief. Italian accents are slightly dodgy but the female Italiano-American blends possibly intentionally so.

With modern migration patterns remaining newsworthy, A View From The Bridge feels just as relevant today as it was when Miller wrote it back in 1956 after the 1924 Immigration Act when the play was viewed as a satire of Senator McCarthy’s witch hunts. Having once worked the docks himself, Miller’s sympathies clearly lie with the everyman who battles unprotected against low pay, limited job security and backbreaking physical labour.

Like a tragically flawed Greek hero, through his own blinkered outlook, unhealthy infatuation and inability to let go, Miller’s protagonist stubbornly precipitates his own downfall.

Unlike current tabloid representations of illegal immigrants, Rodolpho and Marco are the closest Miller comes to creating sympathetic characters, perhaps giving less open-minded audience members something to ponder.

Touring Consortium Theatre’s A View From The Bridge showed at The Alhambra between March 31- April 4 before continuing its UK tour: touringconsortium.co.uk/show/a-view-from-the- bridge.

By Leo Owen