AViewFromTheBridgeBroadway.com

Conversations with John Lahr: Liev Schreiber

By The New Yorker / March 10, 2010

In the February 1, 2010, issue of the magazine, John Lahr wrote about “A View from the Bridge,” a revival of Arthur Miller’s 1955 play, directed by Gregory Mosher. (Subscribers can read the full text online; others can pay to access the issue.) Last month, Lahr sat down with the actor Liev Schreiber to discuss the surprising humor in the play, how he identified with his character’s loneliness, and performing opposite Scarlett Johansson.

Scarlett Johansson and Liev Schreiber.
Photograph by Francesco Carrozzini

The  revival of Arthur Miller’s 1955 play “A View from the Bridge” (deftly directed by Gregory Mosher, at the Cort) is a singular astonishment: a kind of theatrical lightning bolt that sizzles and startles at the same time, illuminating the poetry in the play’s prose and the subtlety in its streamlined construction. “A View from the Bridge” may not be Miller’s best play, but this is one of the best productions of his work that I’ve ever seen.

In John Lee Beatty’s moody set, the action emerges from the chilly shadows of the brown warrens of Red Hook, a working-class Italian enclave on the seaward side of the Brooklyn Bridge. “This is the gullet of New York swallowing the tonnage of the world,” Alfieri (the compelling Michael Cristofer), a lawyer, who serves as a kind of chorus for the tragic tale, says at the opening. He adds, “I am inclined to notice the ruins in things, perhaps because I was born in Italy.” The ruin in question is the longshoreman Eddie Carbone (Liev Schreiber), a palooka with no purchase on language or on his own psyche, who is destroyed by his unexamined desire for his teen-age niece, Catherine (Scarlett Johansson), whom he and his wife, Beatrice (Jessica Hecht), have raised. When Catherine falls in love with one of the two illegal immigrants that they put up—cousins from the Old Country—Eddie’s only way to keep her from getting married is to report the cousins to the Immigration Bureau. By dropping the dime, Eddie betrays his wife, his niece, his relatives, himself, and, by extension, his entire tribe. The story’s symmetry is elemental and terrifying; it hurtles to its conclusion, propelled by Schreiber’s uncanny, incandescent performance.

Saturnine and strapping, Eddie enters in a cloth cap and an overcoat as rumpled as the world he inhabits. He is driven by feelings that he can neither fathom nor control, and which he hides beneath a show of paternal concern. “Listen, you been givin’ me the willies the way you walk down the street, I mean it,” he tells his curvaceous niece, taking in her hourglass figure from the comfort of his easy chair. “Catherine, I don’t want to be a pest, but I’m tellin’ you you’re walkin’ wavy.” Of the many gifts that Schreiber brings to the role—a swift mind, a pitch-perfect ear for the sludge of the demotic, a reservoir of restrained aggression, an ability to listen—the most important, it seems to me, is a sense of his own unresolved nature, an inchoate longing that makes him a perfect emotional fit for Eddie. There’s a loneliness and an agitation in Schreiber that are at odds with his technical command; this combination of fragility and force makes him seem both mysterious and dangerous, and therefore compelling to watch.

As Catherine, Johansson is a superb object for Schreiber’s ambivalent desire. In a robin-egg-blue sweater and a form-fitting gray skirt, she glows with ripeness and an alertness to life. The top student in her high-school graduating class, Catherine, in the opening scene, gets word that she has been offered a fifty-dollar-a-week job at a local plumbing company. Eddie, who has bigger dreams for her, balks at the idea, before finally conceding. “You wanna go to work, heh, Madonna?” he says. “All right, go to work.” Tearfully, Catherine throws herself into his arms, then bustles happily around the threadbare apartment. “I’m gonna buy all new dishes with my first pay!” she says. Catherine’s world is opening up; Eddie’s is closing down. Onstage, Johansson is more resourceful than most of her film roles have allowed her to be; her face is a detailed map of Catherine’s internal climate—her loyalty, her gratitude, her eagerness, her rebelliousness against Eddie’s petty tyrannies, and her insistence on her own desires, in particular for the happy-go-lucky blond cousin, Rodolpho (the excellent Morgan Spector), whom Eddie thinks is “a weird,” because he sings, cooks, and sews.

“You married too?” Catherine asks Rodolpho when he arrives with his brother, Marco (Corey Stoll), a family man with three children to feed. “I have no money to get married. I have a nice face, but no money,” Rodolpho says, laughing. By the time he has finished singing a jazz version of “Paper Doll”—“Leave him finish, it’s beautiful,” Catherine says when Eddie tries to interrupt—Catherine is under his spell. At a stroke, she is claimed by romance and Eddie by envy: when he first goes to see Alfieri about putting a stop to the relationship, he claims he’s been robbed (“He . . . puts his dirty filthy hands on her like a goddam thief”). “I’m tryin’ to bring out my thoughts here,” Eddie tells Alfieri. In fact, everything in this ravishing production demonstrates the opposite: Eddie staunchly refuses to think. All the negative is projected into other people. Drunk at Christmas, Eddie arrives home to find Rodolpho coming out of Catherine’s bedroom. In an electrifying moment—superbly staged by Mosher—the two men lunge at each other. Schreiber seems to throw the full weight of his melancholy into the tackle, which sends them sprawling across the kitchen table. In front of Catherine, Eddie plants a taunting kiss on Rodolpho’s lips. As Catherine tries to pull him away, Eddie grabs her and kisses her hard on the mouth. The horror of the scene is immediately erased from Eddie’s mind by the sound of his own righteousness. “Don’t lay another  hand on her unless you wanna go out feet first,” he says to Rodolpho as he exits. Even at the finale, when Eddie faces off against Marco, who is being deported, he insists on his honor. “Wipin’ the neighborhood with my name like a dirty rag! I want my name, Marco,” he says.

“Something perversely pure calls to me from his memory,” Alfieri says of Eddie in an elegiac epilogue. “Not purely good, but himself purely, for he allowed himself to be wholly known.” In both style and content, this weasel-worded speech seems to contradict the play: Eddie never allows himself to be known; he hides even from himself. So what is going on? About whom is Miller speaking? Miller had heard the Carbone story from a longshoreman around 1950, when he was writing a screenplay about the waterfront for Elia Kazan—which he withdrew from production in 1951, as the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings loomed. (Kazan testified, controversially, as a friendly witness.) Miller thought of that murky first draft as a “probe”; he entitled it “An Italian Tragedy” and put it away. By the time he came back to the story, in 1955, he had fallen in love with Marilyn Monroe, whom he would soon marry; he was in the process of divorcing his wife of sixteen years and breaking up their family. He was, he said, in “psychological country strange to me, ugly and forbidding.” Betrayal had become part of Miller’s story, as well as Kazan’s. In his movie “On the Waterfront” (1954), Kazan attempted to justify his decision to testify by depicting an informer as a heroic victim of systemic corruption. “A View from the Bridge,” by contrast, depicts the informer as a deluded victimizer. “It would have been nice if Art, at this moment, while expressing the strong disapproval he felt, had acknowledged some past friendship—or even written me a few words, however condemnatory,” Kazan, who had directed the Broadway productions of Miller’s “All My Sons” and “Death of a Salesman,” wrote in his autobiography. Instead, it seems to me, Miller replied to Kazan from the stage. Alfieri’s ambivalent envoi is a rueful way of forgiving Kazan his trespasses, and, by extension, allowing Miller to forgive himself his own. “And so I mourn him—I admit it—with a certain . . . alarm,” Alfieri says as the curtain falls.

A View From the Bridge

Production expertly plants the seeds of tragedy while making every moment seem unpredictable.

By David Rooney / January 24, 2010 / variety.com

Sometimes it’s high praise to call a stage director’s work invisible. The compliment applies to Gregory Mosher’s searing revival of “A View From the Bridge,” though it by no means indicates any lack of craftsmanship or insight. Returning to Broadway after a considerable absence, Mosher has instilled in his outstanding cast an unconditional trust in Arthur Miller’s text, evoking a time, a place and a 1950s blue-collar community with penetrating integrity. Each scene flows seamlessly from the one before in a production that expertly plants the seeds of inexorable tragedy yet grips with a tension and volatility that make every moment seem unpredictable.

The revival was assembled around the casting of Liev Schreiber as Eddie Carbone, the Brooklyn longshoreman whose simmering passion for his 17-year-old niece propels him to break unthinkable moral and family codes. Schreiber brings blistering intensity to the role; there’s as much power in his silences and baleful glances as in his anger. His spasms of pain suggest a man whose belligerence can’t quite mask the terror and panic induced by his helpless condition.

From the moment, early on, when he gently nuzzles his head into a too-lingering embrace with the orphaned girl who has grown up in his house, we know Schreiber’s Eddie is possessed by a desire that blinds and befuddles him.

Denial is stamped deep into the subconscious of Schreiber’s characterization, but it’s the absence of calculation that elevates Miller’s marriage of naturalistic psychological drama and Greek tragedy. It also informs the nuanced work of the actors around him.

Chief among them are Scarlett Johansson, remarkably assured as Eddie’s niece Catherine, torn between childlike loyalty and a womanly yen for independence; and Jessica Hecht as his wife, Beatrice.

The latter follows her impeccable work in the short-lived “Brighton Beach Memoirs” with a performance of even more finely layered complexity, offsetting Bea’s nagging harshness with a delicacy that’s heartbreaking. Her warnings to both Eddie and Catherine are issued more out of fear than jealousy. The character’s tragedy is that even when all of Eddie’s betrayals are exposed, she still loves him, expressed in an animal howl at the devastating close of the play.

While Bea observes from the beginning that her husband is on dangerous ground, the stability of the Carbone household is shaken beyond repair by the arrival of Bea’s cousins, Rodolpho (Morgan Spector) and Marco (Corey Stoll), illegal immigrants fresh off the boat from Sicily. The instant romance between Catherine and Rodolpho causes Eddie’s overprotective impulses to run riot as his resentment of Rodolpho crescendos into hatred.

He starts by inferring the Italian is courting Catherine only to benefit his immigration status. Then when that fails to discourage her, he insinuates Rodolpho is homosexual. “The guy ain’t right,” he keeps repeating, pointing out as evidence that he sings, he sews, he cooks and he’s blond.

Miller’s employment of local lawyer Alfieri as a one-man Greek chorus — providing portentous reflections on the action and articulating weighty themes of justice and honor — can seem heavy-handed. But Michael Cristofer is an actor of uncommon intelligence and compassion who brings gravitas to the running commentary and perceptive depths to his two interviews with Eddie.

In these powerfully loaded scenes, Alfieri functions as the obstinate longshoreman’s father confessor, without the sin ever being named. The futility of his attempts to steer Eddie away from his disastrous course is crushing.

Brushed with chiaroscuro textures by Peter Kaczorowski’s brooding lighting, John Lee Beatty’s quietly oppressive set is an atmospheric representation of an all-seeing community with rigid rules — particularly regarding stool pigeons. The blackened windows of its looming tenement houses are like watchful eyes, illuminated only when Eddie crosses the line in a plot development that echoes Miller’s own experience with the House Un-American Activities Committee.

But it’s the unraveling of his family that cuts deepest. “I want my respect,” Eddie keeps barking at Beatrice, even when she can barely look at him. And even when the evidence is insurmountable that her troubled father figure will never be able to think rationally or disinterestedly about her future outside of his house, Catherine still struggles to free herself from her loyalty, dependence and naive hope that Eddie will somehow relent.

Looking shapely in tight sweaters and skirts yet still girlishly oblivious to her sensuality, Johansson embodies this dilemma with touching dignity, as much in her moments of cautious distance as those of heated self-assertiveness.

Originally an understudy, Spector stepped into the role of Rodolpho at short notice when Santino Fontana was injured during previews. But there’s no trace of uncertainty in his performance, which is rich in humor and flirtatious warmth, with just a hint of ambiguity to feed Eddie’s suspicions. As Rodolpho’s married brother Marco, Stoll etches a fully grounded man of formidable physical and moral strength.

There’s not a false note in any of the performances or an ill-considered directorial stroke in Mosher’s clear-eyed approach to this first-rate revival.

A View From the Bridge

Cort Theater; 1,079 seats; $126.50 top

Production: A Stuart Thompson, Araca Group, Jeffrey Finn, Broadway Across America, Olympus Theatricals, Marisa Sechrest, Weinstein Co., Jon B. Platt, Sonia Friedman Prods./Robert G. Bartner, Mort Swinsky/Joseph Deitch, Adam Zotovich/Ruth Hendel/Orin Wolf, Shelter Island Enterprises, Shubert Organization presentation of a play in two acts by Arthur Miller. Directed by Gregory Mosher.

Creative: Sets, John Lee Beatty; costumes, Jane Greenwood; lighting, Peter Kaczorowski; sound, Scott Lehrer; hair and wigs, Tom Watson; dialect coach, Stephen Gabis; production stage manager, William Joseph Barnes. Opened Jan. 24, 2010. Reviewed Jan. 20. Running time: 1 HOUR, 55 MIN.

Cast: Eddie - Liev Schreiber Catherine - Scarlett Johansson Beatrice - Jessica Hecht Alfieri - Michael Cristofer Rodolpho - Morgan Spector Marco - Corey StollWith: Robert Turano, Joe Ricci, Matthew Montelongo, Anthony DeSando, Marco Verna, Alex Cendese, Mark Morettini, Antoinette LaVecchia.

A View From Brooklyn of Tragedy Most Classic

NYT Critic’s Pick 
Closing Date: April 4, 2010
Cort Theater, 138 W. 48th St.  212-239-6200
By BEN BRANTLEY / JAN. 24, 2010 / www.nytimes.com

What’s extraordinary about Gregory Mosher’s beautifully observed production of “A View From the Bridge” is how ordinary most of it feels. Very little in this revival of Arthur Miller’s kitchen-sink drama with knives, which opened Sunday night at the Cort Theater, calls loudly for our consideration. Voices are often kept to a just audible murmur, and the Hollywood sheen of the show’s big-name stars, Liev Schreiber and Scarlett Johansson, has been dimmed to a matte finish.

Watching the daily rituals of the small family in mid-1950s Red Hook, Brooklyn, made up of the characters so exquisitely played by Mr. Schreiber, Ms. Johansson and Jessica Hecht, feels like spying across the alley on neighbors who would normally be invisible to you. Yet there’s no question of not paying them the attention that Miller demands.

Looking closely, you notice hairline fissures of unease. What has been cozy becomes, by degrees, claustrophobic, and even if you don’t know the play’s outcome, you’re apt to discover a knot in your stomach. A part of you feels that you should stand up and yell, to defuse tension and deflect disaster, though, as one character notes retrospectively, “nothing at all had really happened.”

Even more than with “Death of a Salesman,” Miller used “Bridge” to sell his theory that true tragic heroes may well emerge from the common run of contemporary lives. So eager was he to make the point that he even included a one-man Greek chorus, an Italian-born lawyer named Alfieri (here played by Michael Cristofer), who speaks loftily about the grandeur of the story’s “bloody course” of incestuous longings and fatal consequences.

Perhaps Miller felt that plays, like classical heroes, required tragic flaws, and thus provided one for “Bridge” in the form of the long-winded Alfieri. This drama needs no annotator or apologist if it’s acted with the naturalistic refinement — and accumulation of revelatory detail — found in this interpretation.

I had wondered if “Bridge” really needed another revival. New York saw a first-rate production only a dozen years ago, directed by Michael Mayer, with Anthony LaPaglia, Allison Janney and the young Brittany Murphy (who died at 32 last year). But this latest incarnation makes the case that certain plays, like certain operas, are rich enough to be revisited as often and as long as there are performers with strong, original voices and fresh insights.

Scarlett Johansson and Liev Schreiber in the Broadway revival of Arthur Miller’s “A View From the Bridge.” CreditSara Krulwich/The New York Times

Mr. Mosher’s approach is more sotto voce than Mr. Mayer’s was and more intimately focused. The play’s first scenes in the crowded apartment of Eddie Carbone (Mr. Schreiber) have a prosaic quietness. Eddie returns to his apartment from a hard day at the docks to be greeted warmly by Catherine (Ms. Johansson), the 17-year-old niece he has raised with his wife, Beatrice (Ms. Hecht), as his own daughter.

You’re struck by the easy, affectionate interplay between Eddie and Catherine, and by the more fretful, but still amiable, rapport of Eddie and his wife. There is at first glance nothing wrong with this picture.

When you hear the family will be taking in two Italian cousins of Beatrice’s — young men in need of work (and illegally in the country) — you figure that though the apartment is already crowded, the Carbones can handle the company. Even after the arrival of Marco (Corey Stoll) and his younger brother, Rodolpho (Morgan Spector), the politely regulated tension that you sense could arise simply from too many people in too small a space.

But as he has demonstrated repeatedly onstage (“Talk Radio,” “Betrayal”), Mr. Schreiber registers changes in emotional temperature with organic physical precision. At one point, maybe 20 minutes into the show, I looked at his face and it had acquired that drawn, stripped look that comes from sleepless nights. There was no doubting that Eddie Carbone was headed for some kind of breakdown, or that Mr. Schreiber had been gently steering you toward this perception since his first appearance.

Mr. Schreiber is such a complete actor that he has often thrown productions into imbalance, highlighting the inadequacy of the performances around him. That is not a problem here. That the excellent stage veteran Ms. Hecht holds her own with Mr. Schreiber is no surprise. That Ms. Johansson does — with seeming effortlessness — is.

In recent years Broadway’s stages have been littered with dim performances from bright screen stars, including Julia Roberts and Katie Holmes. Film actresses as famous as Ms. Johansson tend to create their own discomfort zones onstage, defined by the mixed expectations of fans and skeptics. I was definitely aware of that zone when I saw Keira Knightley in “The Misanthrope” in London recently.

From left, Jessica Hecht, Scarlett Johansson, Morgan Spector and Liev Schreiber.
CreditSara Krulwich/The New York Times

By comparison, Ms. Johansson melts into her character so thoroughly that her nimbus of celebrity disappears. Her Catherine is a girl on the cusp of womanhood, feeling her way down familiar paths that have suddenly been shrouded in unfamiliar shadows.

The production’s three stars form a closely drawn, illuminating graph of degrees of awareness: Ms. Hecht’s taut, vigilant Beatrice is the most fully conscious, forever taking the measure of what’s amiss. Mr. Schreiber’s Eddie is a study in denial, startled and baffled by physical manifestations of lust and sorrow. Ms. Johansson’s Catherine exists between the two, slowly becoming cognizant of what Beatrice already knows and Eddie refuses to admit.

As the young Italian who falls in love with Catherine, Mr. Spector is burdened by an unfortunate blond coif and by having had to step in for Santino Fontana, a fine actor who left the production after a physical injury. Yet Mr. Spector’s Rodolpho is both as silly and serious as he needs to be, and becomes a credible catalyst to grim events. Mr. Stoll is excellent as the relatively silent Marco. And Mr. Cristofer finds a bona fide character within his thankless narrator’s role.

The subtlety that imbues every performance is extended to the unobtrusive stylishness of Jane Greenwood’s 1950s costumes, Peter Kaczorowski’s melancholy lighting and John Lee Beatty’s revolving set. For the show’s still shocking climactic scene, Mr. Beatty’s streetscape of Brooklyn tenements has quietly shifted to suggest a much older world, of ancient coliseums where blood darkens stones.

Without your being entirely aware of it, you have been ushered to exactly where Miller wants you to be: the realm of classical tragedy. And to the cast’s infinite credit you realize that these characters not only belong in this world at this moment, but that on some level they always have.

A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE

By Arthur Miller; directed by Gregory Mosher; sets by John Lee Beatty; costumes by Jane Greenwood; lighting by Peter Kaczorowski; sound by Scott Lehrer; hair and wig design by Tom Watson; dialect coach, Stephen Gabis; production stage manager, William Joseph Barnes; production manager, Hudson Theatrical Associates; general manager, STP/David Turner. Presented by Stuart Thompson, the Araca Group, Jeffrey Finn, Broadway Across American, Olympus Theatricals, Marisa Sechrest, the Weinstein Company, Jon B. Platt, Sonia Friedman Productions/Robert G. Bartner, Mort Swinsky/Joseph Deitch, Adam Zotovich/Ruth Hendel/Orin Wolf, Shelter Island Enterprises and the Shubert Organization. At the Cort Theater, 138 West 48th Street, Manhattan; (212) 239-6200. Through April 4. Running time: 1 hour 55 minutes.

WITH: Liev Schreiber (Eddie), Scarlett Johansson(Catherine), Jessica Hecht (Beatrice), Michael Cristofer (Alfieri), Morgan Spector (Rodolpho), Corey Stoll (Marco), Alex Cendese (Submarine), Anthony DeSando (First Immigration Officer), Antoinette LaVecchia (Mrs. Lipari), Matthew Montelongo (Tony/Submarine), Mark Morettini (Mr. Lipari), Joe Ricci (Mike), Robert Turano (Louis) and Marco Verna (Second Immigration Officer).

More Background On AViewFromTheBridgeBroadway.com

 

AViewFromTheBridgeBroadway.com is a website dedicated to the 2010 Broadway revival of A View from the Bridge, Arthur Miller’s acclaimed drama about family loyalty, forbidden desire, immigration, betrayal, and the destructive consequences of jealousy. The production starred Liev Schreiber and Scarlett Johansson, was directed by Gregory Mosher, and played at the Cort Theatre in New York City from December 28, 2009, through April 4, 2010. It attracted considerable critical attention, achieved strong box-office results, and earned major theatrical honors, including a Tony Award for Johansson’s Broadway debut.

Originally associated with the Broadway production, AViewFromTheBridgeBroadway.com has evolved into a historical resource preserving information about the show, its performers, creative team, reviews, and place in American theater. Its significance extends beyond its original promotional function because the 2010 revival became an important interpretation of one of Arthur Miller’s most enduring plays. The production demonstrated how a drama written in the 1950s could remain relevant to contemporary audiences through its examination of personal identity, family obligations, immigration, masculinity, and moral responsibility.

The website is particularly valuable to theater enthusiasts, Arthur Miller scholars, Broadway historians, students, and readers interested in the intersection of Hollywood celebrity and serious theatrical performance. Through its production history, cast biographies, and critical commentary, it provides a window into a memorable Broadway season and a celebrated interpretation of American dramatic literature.

History and Purpose of AViewFromTheBridgeBroadway.com

AViewFromTheBridgeBroadway.com was established as the official website associated with the 2010 Broadway revival of A View from the Bridge. Its original purpose was to introduce prospective theatergoers to the production, promote ticket sales, provide performance information, and highlight the cast and creative team. Like many theatrical websites created for limited Broadway engagements, it served as a central online destination during the period when the show was actively running.

The website’s original subject was especially attractive for online promotion because the production combined an internationally recognized playwright with two prominent film and theater performers. Liev Schreiber already possessed substantial Broadway credentials, while Scarlett Johansson was making her Broadway debut after establishing herself as a major Hollywood actress. Their participation helped introduce the play to audiences who might not otherwise have attended a revival of a mid-twentieth-century American tragedy.

Following the conclusion of the Broadway engagement, the domain reportedly passed through several owners and underwent changes in its editorial direction. At one point, it was used as a more general theater-oriented blog rather than a website devoted exclusively to the production. Its later presentation returned to the original theatrical subject, incorporating historical production information and material drawn from contemporary reviews and publicity.

The publicly available information does not establish the legal identity of the domain’s current registrant or confirm that the original Broadway producers retain ownership. It is therefore important to distinguish the website’s historical status as a production-associated promotional destination from its present role as a retrospective resource.

Unlike an active ticketing website, the domain now serves primarily as a record of a completed production. Its usefulness lies in preserving details that might otherwise require consulting numerous theater databases, newspaper archives, and entertainment publications.

Arthur Miller and the Origins of A View from the Bridge

Arthur Miller ranks among the most influential American playwrights of the twentieth century. Born in New York City in 1915, he developed a body of work examining social responsibility, personal integrity, economic pressures, and the conflicts between individuals and the communities in which they live. His best-known plays include All My Sons, Death of a Salesman, The Crucible, and A View from the Bridge.

A View from the Bridge originated partly from Miller’s interest in the lives of working-class residents along the Brooklyn waterfront. The playwright encountered stories about longshoremen, immigrant families, and the unwritten codes governing tightly connected waterfront communities. These experiences contributed to his creation of Eddie Carbone, a dockworker whose inability to acknowledge his own emotions ultimately destroys his family.

The play first appeared on Broadway at the Coronet Theatre on September 29, 1955, presented alongside Miller’s A Memory of Two Mondays. The original version was a one-act drama, but Miller subsequently revised it into a two-act play. The revised version premiered in London in 1956 and became the form most frequently performed in later productions.

The historical context is essential to understanding the drama. During the 1950s, American society was experiencing intense political tensions involving loyalty, accusations, and public denunciation. Miller’s own experiences during the era of the House Un-American Activities Committee influenced his thinking about betrayal and the moral consequences of informing on others.

Although A View from the Bridge concerns an Italian American family in Brooklyn, its central conflicts extend beyond any single community or historical period. Miller examines the dangers of possessiveness, the relationship between law and justice, and the psychological damage caused when individuals refuse to confront uncomfortable truths about themselves.

The play’s enduring relevance helped make it an appealing choice for Broadway revival in 2010.

The Story: Family Loyalty, Jealousy, and Betrayal

The action takes place in Red Hook, Brooklyn, a waterfront neighborhood historically associated with maritime employment, immigrant communities, warehouses, and working-class family life.

Eddie Carbone is a longshoreman who lives with his wife, Beatrice, and their teenage niece, Catherine. Eddie and Beatrice have raised Catherine, and Eddie considers himself responsible for protecting her as she approaches adulthood. His protective behavior, however, conceals a possessive emotional attachment that he cannot acknowledge.

The household’s fragile equilibrium changes when Beatrice’s cousins, Marco and Rodolpho, arrive from Italy seeking employment and economic opportunity. Because the brothers lack legal immigration status, their presence creates risks for everyone involved in providing them shelter.

Catherine quickly develops a romantic interest in Rodolpho, a lively young man whose personality contrasts sharply with Eddie’s traditional expectations of masculinity. Rodolpho enjoys singing, cooking, and sewing, qualities Eddie uses to question his suitability as Catherine’s romantic partner.

As Catherine becomes more independent, Eddie’s resentment intensifies. He attempts to undermine her relationship with Rodolpho, questions the young man’s intentions, and seeks advice from Alfieri, an Italian American lawyer who serves as both a character and a narrator.

Alfieri recognizes the destructive direction of Eddie’s behavior but cannot prevent the approaching tragedy. Eddie eventually takes an action that violates the community’s deeply held expectations of family loyalty, setting in motion a confrontation with devastating consequences.

The drama draws much of its power from the contrast between Eddie’s perception of himself and the motivations apparent to everyone around him. He believes he is defending his household and reputation, while his actions increasingly reveal jealousy, insecurity, and an inability to accept Catherine’s independence.

Miller combines realistic domestic dialogue with the structure of classical tragedy. Eddie is not a king or legendary warrior, but an ordinary working man whose personal weaknesses produce consequences of extraordinary emotional magnitude.

The 2010 Broadway Production: Dates, Theater, and Performance Details

The 2010 revival was presented as a limited Broadway engagement at the Cort Theatre, located at 138 West 48th Street in Manhattan’s Theater District. Previews began on December 28, 2009, and the official opening took place on January 24, 2010. The production concluded on April 4, 2010.

According to the Internet Broadway Database and Playbill, the engagement included 30 preview performances and 81 regular performances. The production was directed by Gregory Mosher and featured a prominent cast led by Schreiber, Johansson, and Jessica Hecht.

The Cort Theatre, which had approximately 1,079 seats at the time, offered an intimate environment for a Broadway house. Its scale was particularly appropriate for a drama centered on domestic tensions and psychological conflict. Rather than relying on spectacle, the production emphasized performances, carefully controlled staging, and the gradual accumulation of emotional pressure.

The play ran approximately two hours, with contemporary production listings giving slightly different running-time estimates. Its relatively compact structure allowed the audience to experience the story’s progression without unnecessary diversions.

Although the revival had strong commercial results, it closed as scheduled rather than extending indefinitely. Playbill reported that the production had recovered its initial investment before its final performance, an important accomplishment for a limited-run dramatic revival.

Location: The Cort Theatre and New York’s Broadway District

The Cort Theatre was situated in Midtown Manhattan, in one of the world’s most important concentrations of professional theaters. Its West 48th Street address placed it within walking distance of Times Square, Rockefeller Center, Radio City Music Hall, and numerous other Broadway venues.

The theater opened in 1912 and became known for hosting significant dramatic productions. Designed by architect Thomas W. Lamb, the building reflected the architectural ambitions of early twentieth-century Broadway, with a traditional auditorium and decorative features intended to create an elegant theatrical environment.

The theater was operated by the Shubert Organization during the 2010 production. It has since been renamed the James Earl Jones Theatre, honoring the distinguished American actor. Consequently, historical references to the Cort Theatre and contemporary references to the James Earl Jones Theatre identify the same Broadway venue.

Its location was convenient for theatergoers arriving by subway, train, or other public transportation. Times Square’s major transit connections provided access from throughout New York City, while nearby Pennsylvania Station and Grand Central Terminal served visitors traveling from surrounding communities.

The contrast between the theater’s Midtown Manhattan location and the play’s Red Hook, Brooklyn, setting was also noteworthy. Audiences attended the performance in the heart of New York’s entertainment district while watching a story rooted in the city’s working-class waterfront history.

Red Hook’s maritime heritage, immigrant population, and neighborhood traditions supplied the cultural background for Miller’s drama. The 2010 production sought to recreate that atmosphere through its acting, scenic design, costumes, and lighting.

Liev Schreiber as Eddie Carbone

Liev Schreiber’s portrayal of Eddie Carbone was central to the revival’s critical and commercial success. By 2010, Schreiber had already established a reputation as a formidable stage performer, combining classical training with extensive experience in contemporary American drama.

He had previously won a Tony Award for his performance in the 2005 Broadway revival of David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross and received another nomination for Talk Radio. His screen credits included The Manchurian Candidate, Defiance, and X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

In A View from the Bridge, Schreiber portrayed Eddie as a man whose outward confidence concealed profound emotional confusion. Rather than presenting the character as an obvious villain, he emphasized the contradictions between Eddie’s affectionate behavior, rigid moral expectations, and increasingly destructive impulses.

Critics particularly admired his ability to communicate psychological changes through physical movement, facial expression, silence, and shifts in vocal intensity. His Eddie appeared to be struggling against emotions he lacked the language or self-awareness to understand.

This interpretation was essential to the production’s tragic effect. The audience could recognize Eddie’s destructive behavior while also understanding the insecurity and desperation beneath it.

Schreiber received a 2010 Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Play and won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor in a Play. His performance remains one of the production’s defining achievements.

Scarlett Johansson’s Broadway Debut as Catherine

Scarlett Johansson’s participation attracted substantial media interest because A View from the Bridge marked her Broadway debut. Although she had performed professionally at a young age, she was best known internationally for her film work.

Her screen career already included acclaimed performances in Lost in Translation, Girl with a Pearl Earring, Match Point, and Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Her casting introduced the production to movie audiences while generating questions about how successfully a major film star could adapt to the demands of Broadway.

Johansson played Catherine, the young woman whose growing independence becomes the catalyst for Eddie’s emotional collapse. The role required her to convey affection, innocence, confusion, loyalty, and eventually resistance to Eddie’s controlling behavior.

Contemporary critics frequently emphasized the naturalness of her performance. Rather than relying on celebrity presence, she presented Catherine as a believable young woman discovering the limits of the family relationships that had previously defined her life.

Her scenes with Schreiber were particularly important because they revealed the changing balance of power between Eddie and Catherine. As Catherine became more confident about her future, Eddie grew increasingly desperate to maintain control.

Johansson’s performance earned the 2010 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play. She also received a Drama Desk nomination and a Theatre World Award recognizing her Broadway debut.

The Tony victory gave the revival a lasting place in Broadway history and demonstrated that Johansson’s acting abilities extended successfully beyond film.

Jessica Hecht, Michael Cristofer, and the Supporting Cast

Although Schreiber and Johansson dominated the production’s publicity, the supporting performers were essential to its artistic success.

Jessica Hecht portrayed Beatrice, Eddie’s wife, whose understanding of the family’s emotional tensions places her in an increasingly painful position. Beatrice recognizes the troubling nature of Eddie’s attachment to Catherine but struggles to confront the consequences while preserving her marriage.

Hecht brought extensive stage and television experience to the role. Her Broadway work included The Last Night of Ballyhoo, Julius Caesar, and Brighton Beach Memoirs, while television audiences knew her from appearances in series such as Friends and Breaking Bad.

Her portrayal of Beatrice earned a Tony nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play. Critics praised her ability to communicate both emotional vulnerability and the growing desperation of a woman watching her household collapse.

Michael Cristofer played Alfieri, the lawyer who narrates and interprets the tragedy. Cristofer was already a distinguished playwright, having won both a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award for The Shadow Box. His performance gave Alfieri the authority and compassion necessary to guide the audience through Miller’s moral questions.

Morgan Spector portrayed Rodolpho, Catherine’s romantic interest. Spector joined the production after Santino Fontana sustained an injury during previews, stepping into a demanding role under challenging circumstances. His interpretation balanced Rodolpho’s youthful charm with the ambiguity that fuels Eddie’s suspicions.

Corey Stoll played Marco, Rodolpho’s older brother, whose sense of family duty and personal honor becomes increasingly important as the drama progresses. Stoll’s restrained performance helped establish Marco as a moral counterweight to Eddie.

Together, the supporting actors created a credible community of people whose individual hopes and loyalties become entangled in Eddie’s tragedy.

Gregory Mosher and the Creative Team

Director Gregory Mosher brought considerable experience in American drama to the 2010 revival. His career included leadership positions at major theatrical institutions and collaborations with playwrights such as David Mamet, Arthur Miller, and Tennessee Williams.

Mosher’s approach emphasized clarity, psychological realism, and respect for Miller’s language. Rather than imposing an elaborate reinterpretation on the play, he concentrated on relationships, pacing, and the tension developing beneath ordinary domestic interactions.

The production’s visual environment reinforced this direction. Scenic designer John Lee Beatty created a representation of Brooklyn tenement life that suggested the physical and social pressures surrounding the Carbone family. The set helped establish a neighborhood in which private behavior could have public consequences.

Costume designer Jane Greenwood used period clothing to communicate class, personality, and the changing identities of the characters. Her work was particularly important in showing Catherine’s transition from adolescence toward adulthood.

Lighting designer Peter Kaczorowski employed shadows and carefully controlled illumination to heighten the production’s atmosphere. Sound designer Scott Lehrer contributed to the environmental realism and dramatic tension.

Additional creative personnel included hair and wig designer Tom Watson and dialect coach Stephen Gabis. Their contributions supported the production’s historical setting and the credibility of its Italian American characters.

The collective result was a revival that critics praised for its restraint, precision, and emotional authenticity.

Critical Reviews and Press Coverage

The 2010 revival received substantial coverage from major newspapers, magazines, entertainment publications, and theater-industry outlets. Much of the attention centered on the performances of Schreiber and Johansson, but reviewers also examined Mosher’s direction and the continued relevance of Miller’s writing.

Ben Brantley, reviewing the production for The New York Times on January 24, 2010, praised the understated quality of the staging. He emphasized how ordinary family interactions gradually developed into an atmosphere of dread, allowing the audience to experience the approaching tragedy almost before recognizing its full implications.

Brantley also praised Johansson’s ability to disappear into the character of Catherine despite her celebrity status. His review treated the production as evidence that familiar dramatic works could reveal new dimensions through carefully observed performances.

David Rooney’s review in Variety, also published on January 24, 2010, highlighted the production’s seamless pacing and the intensity of Schreiber’s characterization. Rooney admired Mosher’s confidence in the text and the ensemble’s ability to make the tragedy feel both inevitable and unpredictable.

The New Yorker published John Lahr’s assessment of the revival and subsequently featured a conversation with Schreiber in March 2010. Their discussion explored the actor’s interpretation of Eddie, the character’s loneliness, and the unexpected humor within Miller’s drama.

The production also received extensive attention from Playbill, Broadway.com, and BroadwayWorld. These outlets covered casting developments, opening-night activities, reviews, awards, and the eventual conclusion of the engagement.

Broadway.com preserved video clips and promotional material associated with the production, including scenes featuring the principal performers and opening-night coverage. Such materials provide a valuable supplement to written criticism because they allow later audiences to encounter aspects of the performances directly.

The breadth of press attention helped establish the revival as one of the notable dramatic events of the 2009–2010 Broadway season.

Awards and Theatrical Recognition

The production earned several major awards and nominations, confirming that its reputation extended beyond the publicity surrounding its celebrity cast.

At the 2010 Tony Awards, Scarlett Johansson won Best Featured Actress in a Play. The production received six Tony nominations overall, including Best Revival of a Play, Best Actor in a Play for Liev Schreiber, Best Featured Actress in a Play for Jessica Hecht, Best Direction of a Play for Gregory Mosher, and Best Sound Design of a Play for Scott Lehrer.

The Drama Desk Awards recognized the production with Outstanding Revival of a Play, while Schreiber won Outstanding Actor in a Play. Johansson also received a nomination in the featured actress category.

The Drama League honored the revival with its Distinguished Revival of a Play award. Additional recognition included nominations from the Outer Critics Circle and Johansson’s Theatre World Award.

These honors reflected appreciation for the production as an ensemble achievement rather than merely a star-driven theatrical event. They also strengthened its historical importance among the many revivals of Miller’s work.

Popularity, Ticket Sales, and Commercial Success

The 2010 revival demonstrated that a serious American drama could attract substantial Broadway audiences when supported by prominent performers, favorable reviews, and effective promotion.

According to Playbill’s production records, the engagement generated approximately $10.94 million in ticket revenue. Average attendance reached approximately 97.3% of capacity, indicating consistently strong demand during its limited run.

The production’s highest reported weekly gross was $988,455 for the week ending April 4, 2010, its final week. The average ticket price across the engagement was approximately $93.15.

Theatrical Index records approximately 116,582 admissions during the production. These figures illustrate the considerable audience reach achieved during a relatively short engagement.

The financial results were especially noteworthy because Broadway plays generally have fewer opportunities for the large-scale merchandising, spectacle, and extended touring revenue associated with successful musicals. A limited dramatic production must recover its investment within a comparatively narrow performance window.

Playbill reported that the revival recouped its initial investment before closing. Although there was discussion of a possible transfer or return engagement, the production ended according to its planned schedule.

The combination of strong attendance, favorable reviews, and award recognition demonstrated the commercial viability of a carefully produced classic drama featuring well-known performers.

The Website’s Content, Navigation, and Historical Resources

AViewFromTheBridgeBroadway.com is organized around the theatrical production rather than the features commonly associated with commercial websites, such as restaurant menus, product catalogs, or ongoing service bookings.

Its principal content areas include information about the play’s history, cast biographies, creative personnel, and press reviews. These sections provide a structured introduction to the production and the broader history of Miller’s drama.

The historical material places the 2010 revival within the play’s long performance tradition. The cast section supplies professional biographies and career highlights, helping readers understand the experience each performer brought to the stage. The creative section identifies the playwright, director, and design professionals responsible for the production.

The press and reviews material preserves critical responses from major publications, offering insight into how the production was received during its original run.

The website also provides the historical theater address and production dates, details useful for researchers comparing Broadway engagements or reconstructing the cultural landscape of the period.

Unlike a restaurant or retail business, the website does not have a food menu, current operating hours, or a contemporary customer-review system central to its purpose. Its relevant equivalent of a menu is its organization of theatrical information, while professional reviews and audience commentary serve as records of reception.

The website’s greatest strength is its concentration on a specific production rather than attempting to cover the entire history of Broadway. This focused approach makes it useful to readers seeking an introduction to the 2010 revival.

Earlier Revivals and Adaptations of A View from the Bridge

The 2010 production was part of a much longer performance history extending across several decades and countries.

Following its original Broadway presentation in 1955 and revision in 1956, A View from the Bridge became a frequently revived work in American and international theater. Its relatively concentrated setting, compelling characters, and universal moral questions made it adaptable to different theatrical styles.

A 1961 film adaptation directed by Sidney Lumet brought the story to cinema audiences. The play was also produced Off-Broadway and in regional theaters, helping establish it as a major work of modern American drama.

A Broadway revival in 1983 starred Tony Lo Bianco. Another important revival opened in 1997 under the direction of Michael Mayer, featuring Anthony LaPaglia, Allison Janney, and Brittany Murphy. That production won the 1998 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play, while LaPaglia won Best Actor in a Play.

The work also inspired an opera composed by William Bolcom, with a libretto by Miller and Arnold Weinstein. The opera premiered at Lyric Opera of Chicago in 1999 and was subsequently presented at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

In 2009, a London production starring Ken Stott, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Hayley Atwell, and Harry Lloyd demonstrated the play’s continued international appeal shortly before the Schreiber-Johansson revival opened on Broadway.

A later production directed by Ivo van Hove transferred to Broadway in 2015, offering a starkly different interpretation. That revival won the 2016 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play and Best Direction of a Play.

These productions reveal the play’s flexibility. Directors have approached it through naturalism, psychological realism, and highly stylized theatrical techniques, while preserving the central conflicts that make Miller’s writing enduringly powerful.

Immigration, Red Hook, and the Play’s Social Significance

One reason A View from the Bridge continues to attract audiences is its treatment of immigration and the difficult choices faced by families seeking economic security.

Marco and Rodolpho arrive in Brooklyn hoping to improve their circumstances through employment. Their precarious legal status makes them dependent on relatives and vulnerable to exposure. Miller presents their situation not simply as a legal question but as a human struggle involving family responsibility, dignity, and survival.

The Red Hook setting reinforces these themes. Historically, the neighborhood was closely connected to shipping, dock labor, and successive immigrant communities. Waterfront employment could be physically demanding and economically uncertain, creating social environments in which family networks and neighborhood loyalty carried considerable importance.

Eddie’s eventual betrayal is devastating partly because it violates these community expectations. His actions expose the tension between formal legal authority and informal codes of loyalty.

The play also examines masculinity and gender expectations. Eddie’s suspicion of Rodolpho is influenced by the younger man’s willingness to engage in activities Eddie considers insufficiently masculine. These prejudices become tools through which Eddie attempts to justify his jealousy.

Catherine’s development introduces another social dimension: the struggle of a young woman to establish independence within a household dominated by traditional expectations. Her desire to work, pursue romance, and make decisions about her future challenges Eddie’s authority.

For contemporary audiences, these subjects remain recognizable. Debates about immigration, family autonomy, gender roles, and personal responsibility continue to shape public life, giving Miller’s drama relevance beyond its original historical setting.

Hollywood Stardom and Broadway’s Cultural Identity

The 2010 revival also illustrates the complex relationship between Hollywood celebrity and Broadway theater.

Major film performers have long appeared on Broadway, sometimes attracting audiences who might not otherwise attend a particular production. Celebrity casting can generate substantial publicity and improve ticket sales, but it also creates artistic expectations.

In the case of A View from the Bridge, Schreiber’s established stage reputation helped provide credibility, while Johansson’s Broadway debut generated significant curiosity. Their participation created a bridge between audiences familiar with American theater and those primarily interested in contemporary cinema.

The critical response was especially important because reviewers evaluated Johansson’s work as a theatrical performance rather than simply a celebrity appearance. Her Tony Award confirmed the artistic significance of her debut.

The revival consequently became an example of how star casting can support serious drama without necessarily diminishing the integrity of the material.

It also introduced Arthur Miller’s writing to a new generation of theatergoers, some of whom may have been familiar with his reputation but had never experienced one of his plays performed live.

The Website’s Audience and Continuing Value

Today, AViewFromTheBridgeBroadway.com is most relevant to readers interested in theatrical history rather than purchasing tickets for an active production.

Its audience potentially includes Arthur Miller enthusiasts, Broadway collectors, performing arts students, theater educators, researchers, journalists, and fans of the production’s principal actors. Visitors interested in Scarlett Johansson’s career may find the website useful because it documents a major milestone in her professional development.

For students, the production offers an example of how directors and actors can reinterpret a familiar dramatic text. Comparing the 2010 revival with earlier and later productions can reveal changes in acting styles, scenic approaches, and interpretations of Miller’s themes.

For theater historians, the website provides information about the cast, creative team, venue, and critical reception of a commercially successful Broadway revival. It can also serve as a starting point for examining the role of celebrity casting in the economics of contemporary theater.

The site’s current popularity cannot be reliably quantified from publicly available information alone. Verified contemporary traffic statistics, visitor demographics, and domain ownership records are not established by the available sources. Its historical subject, however, is well documented through Broadway databases, theater publications, and major newspaper coverage.

As a retrospective resource, the domain contributes to the preservation of a production whose physical run lasted only a few months but whose performances and awards remain part of Broadway history.

Why the 2010 Revival Remains Important

The significance of the 2010 A View from the Bridge revival rests on several interconnected achievements. It brought a major Arthur Miller drama back to Broadway, delivered acclaimed performances, attracted substantial audiences, and demonstrated that a traditional production could still communicate the emotional force of classical tragedy.

Schreiber’s Eddie Carbone offered a compelling examination of a man destroyed by feelings he cannot understand. Johansson’s Catherine gave the production a memorable Broadway debut that earned one of American theater’s highest honors. Hecht, Cristofer, Spector, and Stoll contributed performances that strengthened the drama’s psychological realism.

Mosher’s direction, supported by the production’s scenic, costume, lighting, and sound design, emphasized the human relationships at the center of Miller’s writing. Critics responded to the precision of the ensemble and the gradual transformation of ordinary domestic circumstances into tragedy.

Commercially, the production achieved an impressive result for a limited-run play, generating nearly $11 million in ticket revenue and recovering its investment.

Its lasting value, however, is not limited to financial performance or awards. The revival demonstrated that Miller’s exploration of loyalty, desire, betrayal, and personal responsibility could still provoke powerful responses more than half a century after the play’s original Broadway debut.

AViewFromTheBridgeBroadway.com preserves an important part of that history. By documenting the production and its reception, the website helps contemporary readers understand why the 2010 revival remains a notable chapter in the performance history of A View from the Bridge and in the broader legacy of American theater.

AViewFromTheBridgeBroadway.com