A View from the Bridge
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A View from the Bridge is a play by Arthur Miller originally produced as a one-act verse drama on Broadway in 1955. It was based upon an unproduced screenplay that Miller developed with Elia Kazan in the early 1950s, entitled The Hook, dealing with corruption on the Brooklyn docks. Although the 1955 one-act production was not successful, it was revised in 1956 to become a more traditional prose play in two acts, and it is through this version that audiences are most familiar with the work today. Interestingly, the play was adapted into an opera in 1999 by William Bolcom, thus bringing the story back into verse.
In 2006, a film version of A View From the Bridge was announced. It is to be directed by Barry Levinson, with Anthony LaPaglia as Eddie, Scarlett Johansson as Catherine, and Frances McDormand as Beatrice. [1]
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[edit] Plot summary
The main character in the story is Eddie Carbone, an Italian American longshoreman, who lives with his wife Beatrice and orphaned niece Catherine. His feelings for Catherine, however, develop from 'over-protective' into something more than filial as the play develops. These feelings are brought into perspective by the arrival from Italy of Beatrice's two cousins, Marco and Rodolpho. They have entered the country illegally, hoping to leave behind hunger and unemployment for a better life in America, and to help build a better life for those they've left behind. Rodolfo is young, good-looking and charming; Catherine instantly falls for him.
Predictably Eddie sets about pointing out all of Rodolpho's flaws and persistently complains that Rodolfo is "not right" (by which he means homosexual). He uses Rodolfo's effeminate qualities, such as dress-making, cooking and singing, to back up his argument.
In the end Catherine decides to marry Rodolpho and Eddie sees he has no choice but to confess to the Immigration Bureau that he is harbouring two illegal immigrants. He takes this action regardless of his earlier assertion that "It's an honour" to give the men refuge. His betrayal of the two men causes Eddie to lose the respect of his neighbours, his friends and his family.
In the final pages of the play the sense of crisis climaxes with a fight between Eddie and Marco which results in Eddie’s death. Eddie brandishes a knife which goes against his ideals of honour. He attacks Marco but Marco turns the blade onto Eddie. This could be seen symbolically as a projection of Eddie's self-destructive tendencies, as his sense of self-worth and his honourable character finally reach the bottom of their downward spiral.
In the final pages of the play, Miller uses stage directions more often to convey the sense of crisis and drama. Miller uses stage directions when it would be difficult to interpret what emotions should be shown. An example of this is when Eddie concedes to let Catherine work. The stage directions indicate that he relents with "a sense of her childhood, her babyhood and the years". Miller also uses his stage directions as a means of making clear to the production company his intended symbolism.
[edit] Setting
The play is set in New York, in the Red Hook neighbourhood in the borough of Brooklyn. Red Hook is a homogeneous community of Italian immigrants. Most of the people in Red Hook originate from Sicily and the Sicilian code of honour is a running motif in the play. Italy represents homeland, origin and culture to the citizens of Red Hook. But, Italy represents different things to the main characters in the play. For example, Catherine associates Italy with mystery, romance and beauty. Rodolpho, on the other hand, is actually from Italy, and thinks it is a place with little opportunity, and a place that he feels justified in escaping from. All of the characters appreciate the benefits of living in the U.S., but still strongly hold to Italian traditions and identify it as home. Italy is the basis of the cultural traditions in Red Hook, and it serves as a touchstone to unite the community, with their own laws and customs.
The set of the play is simple, merely a "skeleton".
[edit] Context
Miller's plays tend to be contemporary commentaries upon the major political issues of his time, told in allegory or metaphor. It is instructive to consider the playwright's motivations in writing this play.
[edit] McCarthyism
Any reading of this play needs to be done in the context of the activities of the House Unamerican Activities Committee (HUAC), as it is a direct response to the divisions that the HUAC created in American society, and between old friends, Miller and Elia Kazan.
The threat of Communism in the post-war era (that is, during the Cold War) created an environment where the pragmatics of the politics of fear empowered governments in Western nations to seek out Communists operating in the community. The HUAC encouraged members of the entertainment industry to turn over colleagues whom they suspected of being Communists.
The penalty for being discovered to be a Communist was to be 'blacklisted' - meaning that their name appeared on a list of people who were never allowed to work in the industry again.
Supporting McCarthyism was seen by some as a deep betrayal, and by others as one's natural duty as a citizen. Miller was of the former opinion.
Though Senator Joseph McCarthy is often credited with being a member of the HUAC, he was not affiliated with it. The HUAC was a committee in the House of Representatives, while McCarthy was a member of the Senate. McCarthy's organization had a simiar aim - to expunge America of Communism - but he focused his investigation on the army and other areas of American culture. Still, the general term "McCarthyism" is used to describe the feeling of aggressive anti-Communism that overtook American politics during the early 1950s.
[edit] Miller, Kazan, and the Blacklist
As mentioned in the introduction, On the Waterfront by Elia Kazan tells a story similar to Miller's "A View from the Bridge". In fact, On the Waterfront is believed to be Kazan's response to Miller's implicit commentary on those who assisted with the efforts of the HUAC.
Kazan himself, of course, named names for the HUAC, seeing it as his duty to inform on suspected Communists. Miller was outraged by this, seeing it as a dishonourable act by his former collaborator. Miller, suspected of being a communist sympathiser, refused to name names, and risked imprisonment for his ideals.
Thus, in Miller's play, Eddie Carbone is degraded from a respectable man to a shameful animal because of his wild mistrust of Rodolfo, a mistrust that lead to his turning in of Rodolfo and Marco to the Immigration Bureau. Carbone here is clearly representing the actions of Kazan in turning friends in to the HUAC, and Miller is giving his opinion on what he considers a shameful betrayal.
On the Waterfront tells a similar story, but the analogous protagonist (Terry Malloy) is portrayed as a hero who does his duty for the greater good. Kazan is defending his honour through this character.
Miller's The Crucible is considered the first of the three exchanges in this very public dispute over allegations of dishonour and duty.
[edit] Sources of suspicion in the play
With this play, Miller hoped to explore the origins of suspicion in the human heart. It is, in a way, a meditation upon how the 'witch-hunts' of McCarthyism could have been supported by men who would normally think of themselves as honourable.
[edit] Sexual betrayal
Suspicion often arises from a fear that one will be betrayed, or the feeling that one has been betrayed without one's knowledge. Betrayal, then, is a major causal factor in suspicion, and central to the concept of betrayal in human relations is sexual betrayal.
A number of times we see insinuations of sexual infidelity. Marco's wife back home in Italy, for example, has the cloud of suspicion cast upon her by association, and in an almost off-hand way.
EDDIE: I betcha there's plenty surprises sometimes when those guys get back there, heh?
MARCO: Surprises?
EDDIE (laughing): I mean, you know - they count the kids and there's a couple extra than when they left?
By contrast, Eddie establishes his 'ownership' of Catherine, in much the same way an Elephant Seal protects his 'harem' - by bluster:
EDDIE: (rises, paces up and down): It ain't so free here either, Rodolfo, like you think. I seen greenhorns sometimes get in trouble that way - they think just because a girl don't go around with a shawl over her head that she ain't strict, y'know? Girl don't have to wear black dress to be strict. Know what I mean?
The chief most sexual betrayal, though, is clearly the courtship of Catherine by Rodolfo. Eddie, who has grown an unwholesome affection for his adopted 'daughter', resents being replaced in her affections by someone he sees as an unworthy interloper, and he suspects Rodolfo's motivations as well: he feels that Rodolfo is using Catherine to gain citizenship.
When Eddie returns home to find Rodolfo emerging from Catherine's bedroom, she having just emerged before him, straightening her dress, he suspects they have been engaged in intimacies, loses his temper, and orders Rodolfo out of his house.
This culminates in Catherine's 'declaration of independence' - she is so fearful of Eddie now that she feels she has to escape him.
CATHERINE: (trembling with fright): I think I have to get out of here, Eddie.
EDDIE: No, you ain't goin' nowhere's, he's the one.
CATHERINE: I think I can't stay here no more.
At this point, Eddie explodes. The violence that erupts is a realisation of implied violence in the scene in the previous Act where his barely-contained suspicions of Rodolfo's homosexuality were exposed in accusation after accusation:
EDDIE: (to BEATRICE): He's lucky, believe me. (Slight pause. He looks away, then back to Beatrice.) That's why the water-front is no place for him. (They stop dancing. RODOLFO turns off phonograph.) I mean like me - I can't cook, I can't sing, I can't make dresses, so I'm on the waterfront. But if I could cook, if I could sing, if I could make dresses, I wouldn't be on the water-front. (He has been unconsciously twisting the newspaper into a tight roll. They are all regarding him now; he senses he is exposing the issue and he is driven on.) I would be someplace else. I would be in a dress store...
He then challenges Rodolfo to attend a boxing match, assuming this will expose him, as he believes no effeminate person would be interested in the manly sport of boxing. He uses this topic as a pretext to punch Rodolfo, while 'teaching him a lesson', ostensibly a lesson about boxing, but actually about who is the alpha male. This symbolic beating will turn into a true beating in the next Act.
It has been asserted by some commentators that there are homo-erotic tensions between Eddie and Rodolfo. This stems from when Eddie kisses Rodolfo. He claims to have done this to prove that Rodolfo is homosexual, or “not right” as he puts it: "He didnt have the right kind of fight, I know it...". He did this to prove that Rodolfo could have no sexual desires for Catherine and was only marrying her to live in America.
Clearly, however, the kiss is intended to mock Rodolfo, not to express any latent sexual feelings for him. Taken in the context of the belittlement that Eddie is dealing out to Rodolfo, the kiss can mean nothing other than a slight on his masculinity, and therefore on his right to claim Catherine.
Such is his contempt for Rodolfo's (he believes) feigned sexual conquest of Catherine, that Eddie reduces the dispute to simple "bestial dominance" - he, Eddie, is the bigger animal, and he therefore deserves the prized female.
This need for "bestial dominance" is clearly desperation, and lacks the nobility of the show of strength by Marco, who raises the chair in a show of strength to put Eddie in his place. The desperation arises not only from the sexual betrayal that he feels he has suffered, but also from the fact that Eddie sees himself as the patriarch, and yearns for control of every situation and everyone around him. Note that all the conflicts in the play escalate whenever Eddie loses control. This hypothesis is further supported in the final pages when Marco repeatedly calls Eddie an “animal”.
There are several suspicions which at first the characters suppress, but then, during the course of the play, were forced into revealing. An example of this is that Beatrice’s loyalty is divided between Eddie and Catherine. Beatrice desperately wants to be closer to Eddie because she has sensed a rift forming between them, and the only way she feels she can break this is if Catherine matures and leaves. She tries to bring this about herself, by telling Catherine that she needs to act more like a woman and to stop acting like a child around Eddie. She also defends her getting married to Rodolfo in order to get her away from the house. She is most likely pursuing this course of action because she is jealous of Catherine becoming so (inappropriately) close to Eddie, and she is blaming Catherine for all of the marital problems she and Eddie are experiencing.
[edit] Double Standard & Ageism
People view a relationship between Eddie and Catherine as an incestuous one, although they are not related. Catherine is Beatrice's blood-niece, and Rodolfo is a relation of Beatrice's also. This is a double standard as Catherine and Rodolfo are blood related and this shows ageism as people wish to see her with some-one closer to her age, they would rather overlook the fact it is incest, rather than her go with a man she isn't related to who happens to be older.
[edit] Cast of characters
- Eddie Carbone- The hardworking, blue collar lead of the play. Eddie is an Italian-American longshoreman (dockyard worker) who provides food on the table for his family, a roof over their heads, and an education for his adopted niece, Catherine. But underneath Eddie's average guy personality is a conflicted man whose love for his niece may be deeper than just paternal, but an incestuous desire. He calls the Immigration Bureau to inform on Rodolfo and Marco, which produces dire consequences. Killed by his own knife at Marco's hands when trying to attack him, he dies in Beatrice's arms at the end of the play.
- Catherine Carbone - The sweet, naive young girl and female lead of the play. Catherine is a stenographer fresh out of high school and relatively new to the world. She develops an attraction to her cousin, Rodolfo, which is the complication that sets in action the story of the play. Her mother, Nancy, was the sister of Beatrice, but she has since died.
- Beatrice Carbone - Eddie's put-upon spouse and aunt of Catherine. She serves ultimately as a champion of her niece and tries to protect her when she can. Beatrice is also aware of Eddie's real feelings for his niece, and strives to manipulate circumstances to remove Catherine from Eddie's grasp. Otherwise, Beatrice's character can be interpreted as being a bit 'slow', and almost naïve at times.
- Rodolfo - Beatrice's cousin from Italy. He falls in love with Catherine. He tries unsuccessfully to prevent the fight between Eddie and Marco by making a truce. Rodolfo is seen by Eddie as having too many 'unmasculine' talents, and his outrage that Catherine could love and want to marry somebody like Rodolfo drives on the play from the second Act.
- Marco - Rodolfo's older brother and a man of few words. Like Rodolfo, he came to America illegally, but not to be a citizen. His plan was to make money to support his family back home in Italy, which was still suffering post-war Europe's crippled economy. He is very grateful to be given a chance to prosper in America. Following his betrayal by Eddie, he kills Eddie (arguably in self defense) in a fight over the breaking of an unspoken law about always being loyal to one's family.
- Alfieri - The narrator of the play and a family friend of the Carbones. Alfieri is the wise attorney who dispenses legal advice to Eddie. Essentially, Alfieri is the proxy, the representative of the Red Hook neighborhood, completely familiar with its turf and its inhabitants. He tries to warn Eddie about turning on his family. His function in the play can be compared to that of the Chorus in Greek theatre.
- Louis - Eddie's co-worker buddy, who like his other friend Mike, can't resist mocking Eddie for taking in his cousins, who seem to overshadow Eddie. Along with Mike, tries to prevent Eddie from fighting Marco.
- Mike - Another co-worker to Eddie, who travels in pairs with Louis. Ribs into Eddie for taking in his cousins for a source of humour between he and Louis. Along with Louis, tries to prevent Eddie from fighting Marco.
- Immigration Officer 1 - A stern Manhattan immigration officer who takes Rodolfo and Marco away, after Eddie's anonymous phone call.
- Immigration Officer 2 - The second officer working with the first officer, who helps him round up the illegal immigrants.
- Mr. Lipari - A neighbour and local butcher hiding an illegal immigrant family member away.
- Mrs. Lipari - Mr. Lipari's wife and relative of the illegal immigrant they are assisting in safe passage from Italy.
[edit] Original cast (London)
The play was first performed at the Comedy Theatre, London, on October 11, 1956.
- Eddie - Anthony Quayle
- Catherine - Mary Ure
- Beatrice - Megs Jenkins
- Rodolfo - Brian Bedford
- Marco - Ian Bannen
- Tony - Ralph Nossek
- Louis - Richard Harris
- Mike - Norman Mitchell
- First Immigration Officer - John Stone
- Second Immigration Officer - Colin Rix
- Mr Lipari - Mervyn Blake
- Mrs Lipari - Catherine Willmer
- 'Submarine' - Peter Jones
- Alfieri - Michael Gwynn
[edit] Theatre
A View from the Bridge opened on Broadway as a one-act play on September 29, 1955, at the Coronet Theatre (now named the Eugene O'Neill Theatre) and ran for 149 performances. Directed by Martin Ritt, the cast included Van Heflin (Eddie) and Eileen Heckart (Beatrice).
The play was revived on Broadway twice:
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- February 3, 1983 at the Ambassador Theatre, with Tony Lo Bianco as Eddie and directed by Arvin Brown, the production ran for 149 performances.
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- December 14, 1997 at the Criterion Center Stage Right and transferring to the Neil Simon Theatre, the production ran for 239 performances. Directed by Michael Mayer, the cast included Anthony LaPaglia and Allison Janney. The production won the Tony Award for: Best Revival of a Play; Best Actor in Play (LaPaglia); and the Drama Desk Award for: Outstanding Revival of a Play; Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play (Janney); Outstanding Direction of a Play (Mayer).
[edit] Film
A film based on A View from the Bridge titled "Vu du pont" was released in February 1962. Directed by Sidney Lumet, it starred Raf Vallone and Maureen Stapleton as Eddie and Beatrice, with Carol Lawrence as Catherine.
[edit] External links
- A View from the Bridge on Internet Broadway Database [1]
- Internet Movie Database [2]
- Educator's guide to teaching the play
- Sparknotes on the play
- BBC GCSE Study guide to the play
[edit] Sources
Quotations from the play and the list of the original cast cited above are intended as being 'fair use', and are derived from the Penguin Classics version of the play, ISBN 0-14-118350-0.
| The Works of Arthur Miller |
|---|
| Plays |
| Honors at Dawn | The Man Who Had All the Luck | All My Sons | Death of a Salesman | An Enemy of the People | The Crucible | A View from the Bridge | Incident At Vichy | The Price | In Russian | The Creation of the World and Other Business | The American Clock | A Memory of Two Mondays | Up from Paradise | The Archbishop's Ceiling | The Last Yankee | Everybody Wins | The Ride Down Mt. Morgan | Broken Glass | Mr. Peters' Connections | Resurrection Blues | Finishing the Picture |
| Other works |
| Focus | "The Misfits" (short story) | I Don't Need You Anymore (short stories)| Homely Girl: A Life (three short stories) | Timebends (autobiography) | On Politics and the Art of Acting (speech) |
