Displaying items by tag: Eileen Niccolai

Arthur Miller’s perennial classic, ‘A View from the Bridge’, is revived in a faithful production at Shattered Globe Theater. Under the direction of Lou Contey, a cast of familiar Shattered Globe ensemble and a few new faces bring this powder keg of a tale to their stage for the first time since the 1990s.

Every few years, a landmark production of ‘A View from the Bridge’ comes—Chicagoans will remember Ivo Van Hove’s arresting production imported by Goodman in 2017. However, if that’s the only version you’ve seen, you owe it to yourself to see it staged in the way Arthur Miller intended.

Though it wasn’t exactly a smash hit when it debuted on Broadway in 1955, it was through subsequent rewrites and notable revivals that ‘A View from the Bridge’ became nearly as popular as more seminal Miller works like ‘The Crucible’ and ‘Death of a Salesman.’ Perhaps it’s produced so often because its themes surrounding immigration and prejudice remain relevant.

‘A View from the Bridge’ is about a longshoreman, Eddie Carbone (Scott Aiello), and his wife Beatrice (Eileen Niccolai), and their adopted niece Catherine (Isabelle Muthiah). Life is great for the working-class Brooklyn family until their distant relatives from Italy come to stay with them illegally. When a relationship starts to bud between immigrant Rodolpho (Harrison Weger) and Catherine, Eddie’s inappropriate affection for his niece is called into question.

This play has always been a star-turning vehicle for actresses playing Catherine. Scarlett Johanson and Brittany Murphy both took home Tonys for the role. However, Shattered Globe ensemble member Eileen Niccolai’s compelling performance as Beatrice brings the part of the pseudo-cuckolded wife into sharper focus. Niccolai’s Beatrice is vulnerable and needy; she knows her husband isn’t perfect, but he’s all she’s got. Ultimately, she’s the victim of this tragic story. There’s something so fragile about Niccolai’s interpretation.

Inventive staging by Shayna Patel puts the play in a set that looks like a boxing ring. It's a fitting locale for a play so centered around violence. The narrator is a lawyer and interjects an almost inhuman sense of foreboding doom about the Carbones throughout the play. In his view, and perhaps Miller’s greater view, society is so dysfunctional that it leads the lower classes to duke it out at the bottom. Unlike ‘The Crucible,’ Miller points out that having your name respected in the street is just machismo, especially when you’re not respectable.

Themes of toxic masculinity, immigration reform and family abuse are sadly more relevant now than in the 1950s, and the enduring popularity of ‘View from the Bridge’ should inspire activism.

Shattered Globe is one of Chicago’s best and longest-running storefront theatres and it’s easy to see why. Their briskly paced production of ‘A View From the Bridge’ is wonderfully acted, beautifully staged and very traditional. If you like classic American plays, this is the one to see.

Through October 21 at Shattered Globe Theatre at Theater Wit. 1229 W Belmont, Chicago IL 60657 | 773-975-8150

Shattered Globe Theatre welcomes back one of Chicago’s own, Sarah Ruhl.  “For Peter Pan on Her 70th Birthday” is a new play making its Midwestern debut at Theater Wit. Ms. Ruhl is one of the country’s foremost playwrights right now. She has another new play, “How to Transcend a Happy Marriage,” currently running at the Lincoln Center in New York. Her work is often produced in Chicago usually directed by her friend Jessica Thebus. This is an especially personal production for Ruhl as it stars her own mother (Kathleen Ruhl) in the title role. 

No, this is not another warmed over incantation of the JM Barrie fairy tale. While somewhat influenced by the source material, “For Peter Pan on Her 70th Birthday” is a very realistic story of five siblings grappling with the death of their father. What begins in a depressing hospital room, moves to a whiskey-soaked conversation between siblings that eventually turns into a make-believe version of Peter Pan. 

At its core, this is a play about love. There are plenty of plays about dysfunctional families, and this isn’t one of them. What it boils down to are five adult children trying to pinpoint a time when they felt their father’s love. These siblings have differing political beliefs and Ruhl’s apt commentary about our current climate is especially sharp, without being polarizing. There’s a great deal of truth in the courtesy her characters show for one another’s opinions. She also spends a great deal of the play dissecting the role of Catholicism and whether or not there is an afterlife. Despite the volley of bittersweet and at times painful memories of their childhood, these characters love each other and that is felt in the dialogue and performances. 

Kathleen Ruhl is adorable as the oldest sister and former Peter Pan star, Ann. Perhaps it’s her relation to the playwright, or her commitment to character, but Kathleen Ruhl makes the audience question how much of this work is fiction and how much is fact? Eileen Niccolai, a Shattered Globe ensemble member, provides a lot of the humor, but also some of the more heartfelt moments as youngest sister Wendy. All the siblings are named for Peter Pan characters, which underscores Sarah Ruhl’s point that with their parents gone, they are orphans now and need to grow up. 

Like any Sarah Ruhl work, there is a great deal of whimsy. With each new work, Ruhl continues to keep one foot on the ground and one in the clouds. “For Peter Pan on her 70th Birthday” is both prolific in its subject matter and also aesthetically striking it its presentation. The reality of the situation and the poignancy of the lines allows the audience to trust their narrator and fly when the time comes. 

Shattered Globe’s “For Peter Pan on Her 70th Birthday is being performed at Theater Wit at 1229 W Belmont (773.975.8150) and has been extended through May 27th.