A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE. To 29 November.

Mold/Tour

A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE
by Arthur Miller

Clwyd Theatr Cymru (Emlyn Williams Theatre) To 1 November 2003 then tour to 29 November 2003
Mon-Sat 7.45pm Mat Sat 2.45pm & 23 October 1.30pm
Audio-described 30 October
Captioned 5 Pctober 2.45pm
Talkback 23 Octoer 7.45pm;30 October
Runs 2hr One interval

TICKETS: 0845 330 3565 (Mold)
WWW.CLWYD-THEATR-CYMRU.CO.UK (Mold)
Review: Timothy Ramsden 18 October

Good performances in a staging compromised by touring needs.It's not only the magnificent other half of Mold's Miller autumn that makes this disappointing. Director Tim Baker has a gift for visual stage poetry. Here, though the story's clearly told through the central characters' performances, the staging's uncharacteristically clunky. Maybe the demands of a touring set contribute. Perhaps less formal venues than the Emlyn Williams Theatre will suit it better and help cover over awkward moments.

Stephen Marzella gives a strong account of emotionally confused and stirred-up dockworker Eddie Carbone (variously pronounced with a two and three syllable surname). Marzella may not bring the deep-defined complexity of, say, Michael Gambon in Alan Ayckbourn's National Theatre production some years ago, but on a realistic level he shows the honest man of limited understanding struggling with feelings he'd rather not acknowledge, trying to fit matters to a pattern he can comprehend.

His homophobic running-down of illegal immigrant family-member Rodolpho (Jonathan Forbes a flawless blonde of girlzene pin-up or gay icon beauty, but earning Eddie's distrust by evident lack of any sense of hard physical work on the longshore. is forceful. Repeatedly with lawyer Alfieri, Eddie loops back to his certainty Rodolpho didn't try to withdraw from his kiss, offering it as proof of his sexuality. And so, proof the newcomer's only interest in Eddie's too-much beloved niece Catherine is as a passport to US citizenship.

Rosanna Lavelle gives Catherine an innocence that barely frets at her uncle's restrictions. The job she wants to leave school for doesn't seem all that important to her. Similarly, Sharon Eckman's subdued Beatrice (no-one wants cod-Mediterranean flamboyance, but some urgency would help) makes little of the revelation she understands her husband's unacknowledged passion.

Reticence is only thrown away as Eddie chucks the furniture aside. It's been a comfortlessly sparse room, but this supposed climactic moment of rage misfires, Eddie seeming more a dyspeptic furniture-remover than a beast howling in frustrated fury.

Craig Rogan's an aptly-toned Marco, but neither John Moraitis nor the direction earns Alfieri the right to stroll periodically on and speak with tragic dudgeon. The momentary street meetings involving Eddie's fellow-workers are amateurishly unconvincing.

Mike: Roger Clark
Louis: Rob Dugay
Beatrice: Sharon Eckman
Rodolpho: Jonathan Forbes
Second Immigration Officer: Rob Hughes
First Immigration Officer: James Lauren
Catherine: Rosanna Lavelle
Eddie: Stephen Marzella
Alfieri: John Moraitis
Marco: Craig Rogan

Director: Tim Baker
Designer: Mark Bailey
Lighting: Nick Beadle
Sound: Kevin Heyes
Choreographer: Rachel Catherall
Dialect coach: Robert McDonald
Fight director: Terry King

2003-11-03 15:46:58