Arthur Miller and Santa Monica’s Ruskin Group Theatre once again prove a match made in heaven with A View From The Bridge, magnificently performed in an intimate staging that turns every single audience member into a fly on the wall of this gritty Greek tragedy set on the waterfront of 1950s Brooklyn.

Miller’s script remains as potent as ever in its depiction of how love gone crazy can lead a man to his doom, in this case the incestuous passion smoldering inside married Italian-American longshoreman Eddie Carbone (Ray Abruzzo) for his seventeen-year-old live-in niece Catherine (Aurora Leonard), a lust to which his long-suffering wife Beatrice (Kim Chase) has either consciously or unconsciously turned a blind eye.

The merda hits the fan when Beatrice’s fresh-off-the-boat illegal-immigrant cousins Marco (Jesse Janzen) and Rodolpho (Brandon Lill) arrive from the old country to stay with the Carbones and Eddie takes an instant dislike (make that hatred and revulsion) to pretty-boy Rodolpho, whose tenor warbling and ways with a needle-and-thread convince the macho longshoreman that his cousin-in-law “ain’t right.”

No matter that Rodolpho’s “ain’t-rightness” would appear to be entirely in Eddie’s hothouse of a brain, the stage is set for Italian-American tragedy of Greek proportions.

Miller’s A Death Of A Salesman and All My Sons may be better known and more frequently revived (including by the Ruskin), but A View From The Bridge gives them stiff competition where greatness is concerned.

Just as Willy Loman found himself forced to face the reality of a career gone south and Joe Keller his complicity in his son’s death, Eddie Carbone must do the same where his feelings for his nubile niece are concerned, and the result proves devastating, both for himself and those in his orbit.

And just as Linda Loman and Kate Keller found their loyalty to Willy and Joe tested as each man faced potential ruin, Beatrice finds herself equally torn between her wedding vows and the inescapable truth that there are times when even the most devoted of wives must say “Basta! Enough is enough.”

In other words, like the Lomans and the Kellers before them, the Carbones are roles of a lifetime, and Abruzzo and Chase deliver a pair of commanding star turns as Eddie and Beatrice, and never more so than when a single phone call turns one of them from a tragic figure into a monster and leads to an eleventh-hour confrontation that is acting at its fierce and fiery best.

Director Mike Reilly knows better than to reinvent Arthur Miller (something the 2016 Broadway revival tried to do with divisive results), sticking to a mostly realistic waterfront setting (ingeniously achieved on a matchbook-sized stage by scenic designer Stephanie Kerley Schwartz) where passions rage as hot as a sweltering Sicilian summer.

Leonard is innocent perfection as Catherine, and talented newcomer Lill’s hopelessly smitten Rodolpho gives her plenty of reason to feel the fires of first love.

Janzen is terrific too as collateral damage to Eddie’s destructive urges, and like Lill, plays his part with an authentic-sounding Southern Italian accent. (Mary Unruh is dialect and speech coach.)

Last but not least among major players, Sal Viscuso does restrained but powerful work as neighborhood lawyer Alfieri, a one-man Greek chorus as befits a tragedy of this scale.

Kevin Alain (Louis), Jamie Daniels (Mike), Paul Denk (Mr. Lipari), Aaron Marshall (Tony, First Immigration Officer), production stage manager Nicole Millar (Mrs. Lipari), and Jeff Prater (Second Immigration Officer) complete a uniformly splendid cast.

Lighting and sound designer Edward Salas adds atmospheric touches throughout and Michael Mullen’s costumes are pitch-perfect evocations of mid-20th-century blue-collar Brooklyn.

Last but not least, Dan Speaker and Jan Bryant merit major snaps for some frighteningly realistic fight choreography.

A View From The Bridge is produced by Michael R. Myers and John Ruskin. Emma Sánchez is assistant stage manager. Eriss Millar and Lisa Prova are hairs stylists. Casting is by Paul Ruddy.

Probably no L.A. intimate theater has a better track record at reviving Arthur Miller than the Ruskin, and A View From The Bridge easily matches the brilliance of Death Of A Salesman, All My Sons, and A Memory Of Two Mondays before it. If you love Millar even half as much as I do, this is one Miller masterpiece you won’t want to miss.

Ruskin Group Theatre, 3000 Airport Avenue, Santa Monica.
www.ruskingrouptheatre.com

–Steven Stanley
August 27, 2023
Photos: Alex Neher

Tags: Arthur Miller, Los Angeles Theater Review, Ruskin Group Theatre