A View From The Bridge

A View From The Bridge

Rose Byrne talks about stumbling into seeing A View From The Bridge as a nerdy sixteen-year old drama student and she was never quite the same again. It has that sort of effect on people. Widely regarded as Arthur Miller’s finest work, Redline Theatre brings the show to the Old Fitz after a three-year process to secure the rights.

Eddie Carbone is a New York, longshoreman from a good Italian family. He’s the father of the household but also looking after his niece, Catherine who he cares for just a little too much. He’s a good man, devoted to his wife, his family and a promise once made, but is he in love with his niece? It’s ambiguous.

“You can never quite unpick it no matter how many times you read it,” says director, Iain Sinclair (Of Mice and Men, All My Sons, Our Town), “That’s the extraordinary territory that Arthur Miller mines.”

Perhaps the genius of Miller’s play, is that it draws the audience across shifting moral boundaries, then blurring the lines, tying them into more and more complex knots. “This is his ‘Lear’ I think”, says Sinclair, “Everything matters. Every relationship is elemental and fundamental. The moment anything is put out of place the whole world breaks into chaos”.

The normally immersive – almost claustrophobic experience – of the Old Fitz, where the audience is almost literally inside the heads of the cast, is ratcheted-up with traverse seating, custom built for the show. At a hundred minutes and no interval, expect to slowly have your heart and soul twisted to breaking.

Stay for a drink in the front bar at the end – you just might need it.

Until Nov 25. Old Fitz Theatre, 129 Dowling Street, Woolloomooloo. $35-50. Tickets & Info: www.redlineproductions.com.au

You May Also Like

Comments are closed.