“A View From The Bridge”

***** To me Arthur Miller may have been one of America’s best playwrights. Yes, Tennessee Williams was also brilliant, but Miller was able to draw from more types of characters and in circumstances that were far different from one another. Of course, his “Death of a Salesman” and “All Our Sons” are perfect examples, but the rarely done “A View From The Bridge” is a very special story. Originally a one-act play staged back in the 1950’s. After viewing the production on stage, he extended it into a two-act play which is the one that we are seeing today in Chicago.

The play takes place in New York circa 1950’s. The characters are Italian Americans and they live near the docks and close to the Brooklyn Bridge. While the story will unfold before us, Miller opted to have a sort of chorus/narrator who also is a character, the Lawyer, Alferi (deftly handled by John Judd). Most of the time he is our storyteller, but as needed in the story, he becomes the local lawyer to work out problems for these characters.

The family involved is made up of Eddie ( a dynamite performance by Scott Aiello), his wife, Beatrice ( sharply played by Eileen Niccolai) and her orphaned niece, Catherine (played to perfection by Isabelle Muthiah). Eddie and Beatrice have raised her as if they were her parents. As we watch the story evolve, little by little, we get the feeling that Eddie has more than parental love for this girl. He is in fact IN love with her. This was a time in history when many people from Italy were coming to America to find work so they could send money home. In this story, Beatrice has two cousins that are on the boat coming in and Eddie has found work for them on the docks with him.

Eddie is a gracious host to these two men, Marco (Mike Cherry) the elder who is married and has children, one of whom is quite ill, and Rodolpho ( deftly handled by Harrison Weger) . It turns out that Catherine finds herself entranced by Rodolpho and his ability to make people smile, or even laugh. He is charming, sings, dances, can sew, and is perfect for her. He sees her as his passport to becoming a citizen. If they marry, he can stay in America forever. Eddie is jealous and thinks that Rodolpho is a “dandy” and that he is using her to get to be an American. In fact, he implies that Rodolpho is probably Gay.

As the story progresses, and Eddie sees the sparks between Catherine and Rodolpho, his rage grows and in order to show Catherine that marrying him would be a mistake, he grabs Rodolpho and kisses him. Everyone gets crazy, Marco becomes a problem as well and Eddie throws everyone out. Eddie contacts immigration in order to send them back and get his pride back.  In order not to ruin the outcome I will tell you that a lot of what happens at the end makes great sense and the direction of this show (Louis Contey) on a very intimate set( Shayna Patel) keeps us into the tension right up until the end, which is powerful!

The other characters in the production are played by Adam Schulmerich and Chris Martin.

On the tech side, hats off to Gaby Labotka for the fight and intimacy direction and Jamie Auer (props), Jessica Gowens (costumes) , Shelly Strasser ( lighting) and Jeffrey Levin ( sound).

The Theater Wit Stage three is the perfect venue for this intimate look at life as seen by Arthur Miller.

Presented by Shattered Globe Theatre at Theater Wit located at 

1229 West Belmont in Chicago

“A View From The Bridge” will continue Thru – Oct 21, 2023 with performances as follows: