A View From the Bridge

I met Drew at his office and he grabbed a quick slice of pizza as we headed to the Duke of York’s Theatre.  It seemed quite the appropriate thing to do on our way to a play set in New York.  The theatre itself was the first proper English looking theatre I had yet been in…

Arthur Miller, who is well known for works like All My Sons, Death of a Salesman, and The Crucible, tells twisted tales of the great American dream gone wrong.  A View From the Bridge certainly delivers all the hidden sin and guilt one would expect.  I would not have been nearly as uncomfortable had the performance not been so good.  The truth is that the set was just eerie enough and dark in the right way, the lighting cast all the right shadows, and the characters cut through the fourth wall.  I was delighted to see who were playing the leads; Ken Stott, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, and Hayley Atwell delivered an all star performance.  [For some reason it was really exciting to me that we unknowingly stumbled upon a show featuring an actress from my favorite US tv drama (Without a Trace) and one of our favorite films (The Abyss).]

I was convinced by the costumes, the accents, and the street scene that I was sitting around that kitchen table, 50 years in the past–a witness to a conversation and a fly on the wall as the story unfolded.  

The attention to detail was evidenced by the sound of the train that could be heard ever so often rumbling by outside the flat where most of the play took place.  It was like distant thunder, an ominous reminder of the of the coming storm.  Director Lindsay Posner really does deserve credit for this stunning production.  This was two and half hours of anxiety that I am thankful I had the opportunity to endure.

On a completely separate note, we sat next to a couple from Philadelphia who told us that they visit every year in January and we sat behind a group of students from Virginia who were taking a class on the arts in London.  One of the students was from Franklin.  Small world.