Stripping classics of the American theatrical canon down to their bare bones seems to be a trend in recent years. On Broadway, we have "Hamilton," which uses a uniform set of endless brick wall and towering scaffolding to surround an open playing area with just one turntable. We have "The Color Purple," with a series of sepia-hued chair pillars amidst a simple wooden backdrop. This directorial device serves to illuminate with laser-focused precision the humanistic intentions of the playwright or librettist, and it is used in these two productions to outstanding effect.
In Ivo Van Hove's Young Vic production of "A View from the Bridge," making its west coast debut straight from a Tony-winning run on Broadway at the Ahmanson Theatre, that effect is magnified tenfold.
Rendered by scenic designer Jan Versweyveld in a white square rectangle fenced off by a knee-high glass barrier, the production is the unquestioned definition of sparse. Yet it is still ripe to tell Arthur Miller's unadulterated and timeless story of one man's tragic inability to reconcile his obsession with control with the influence of unknown forces. With just one doorway amidst a black backdrop with a flyaway box of black drywall around the perimeter of the rectangle, the play's eight characters step in and out of their setless and propless scenes with a claustrophobic tightness that makes the play's inevitable climax one that inexplicably draws them all together in a bind from which they can never escape.
Every actor inhabits his or her character with an enormous magnitude of sympathy and power. Fred Weller and Andrus Nichols dominate as Eddie and Beatrice Carbone, a longshoreman and his wife who live with their niece Catherine (a seductively compelling Catherine Combs) in a shabby apartment in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Their stalwart existence, in which Catherine succumbs to Eddie's every whim due to his not-too-implicit attraction to her and Beatrice's agonizing compliance, is threatened by the arrival of Marco and Rodolfo (heroically charming Alex Esola and Dave Register) from Italy. The two men, cousins of Beatrice, take up work and residence in the Carbone domicile, and Rodolfo and Catherine grow increasingly close and eventually decide to get married to Eddie's chagrin. Eddie, unwilling to compromise the hold he has on Catherine, takes drastic measures to maintain his authority over the two immigrants and preserve the Americanized ideal that his name upholds. All of this is narrated by Alfieri (a splendidly somber Thomas Jay Ryan), Eddie's lawyer and altruistic moral compass, who recalls the events of the play as if testifying to some unseen detective or court official who is trying without success to make sense of the ludicrous events.
Van Hove, who made his name in New York through this production, is known for his seamless blend of avant garde suspense and brutalist realism. "View" caters to this style magnificently, and the ambience translates to the Ahmanson with ease. The audience is configured into a thrust setting, with two sets of seats onstage in front of both wings in addition to the standard proscenium. With so many vantage points, it is with remarkable clarity and moment-to-moment specificity that Van Hove positions his actors to reflect the inner lives of the characters and the ominous unfolding of the events of the play. This is uninterrupted storytelling of epic proportions, with foreboding music continuously underscoring the scenes by master sound designer Tom Gibbons.
Perhaps the most effective use of the cohesive mise-en-scene is during a dinner scene between the family and the two Italians, with a raindrop-like percussion sequence barreling through unbearably tense moments of silence between lines. This is one example of many of Van Hove's brilliance. He hammers the message of each scene into the audience and grabs hold of them through any means necessary, even through emanating torture as in the scene above. Through this method, he and his team subvert expectations of a classic we theatregoers have long before learned to love and cherish for its universal resonance and beauty.
However, Van Hove goes further. He makes us weep. We do not weep from beauty in this production. We weep for the blood of mankind, the transgressions of one culture that have the primordial power to uniformly shut down another. And as we weep, we are greeted with a deluge of our own sins that washes out everyone who we love and whom we have betrayed through our seemingly benign and necessary actions. This kind of theatre should be required, expected, and made the standard, and we cannot and should not settle for any less if we want this art form to continue as it has for thousands of years.
"A View from the Bridge" plays at the Ahmanson Theatre in the Music Center Complex (135 N Grand Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90012) through Sunday, October 16. Tickets range from $25 (onstage seating) to $125, and may be purchased by phone at (213) 972-4400, online at centertheatregroup.org, or at the box office at the Music Center.
Reach Staff Reporter Ryan Brophy here.
Annenberg Media