Displaying items by tag: Lou Contey
Review: 'A View from the Bridge' at Theater Wit
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
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