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“A View From The Bridge” – SOOP Review / AVFTB / Broadway Radio

 

“1:06:05
We’ll have a link to the show notes and the last review of the Morning Michael saw a production of The View of You from the Bridge.
So Michael, tell us about this Soup Theatre company production.
Well, Soup SOOP stands for Seat of Our Pants theatre company and I I’ve just done a little research on them.

1:06:27
Seems they like they they do a lot of children shows.
But Arthur Miller’s view from the Bridge is absolutely not a children’s show.
Really, really wonderful play.
Very, very compelling, very devastating in its way, extremely dramatic.

1:06:48
This play has had five Broadway productions since its debut in 1955 in a one act form on Broadway.
And then it was subsequently expanded by Miller into a the two act play that we all know nowadays.

1:07:05
And that version premiered, I think premiered off Broadway in 1965 with an amazing cast including Robert Duvall as Eddie and Jon Voight as Rodolfo.
And there is a recording, an audio recording of that production that you can get a hold of you if you’d like to hear that.

1:07:29
And I it’s really worth it.
I’ve always loved the play.
I directed a production of it myself years ago.
So I’m very, very picky I I think and it would be inclined to be hyper critical when seeing a production of it.

1:07:44
But I have to tell you, this production is a stellar example of how very talented people can create something really, really wonderful on stage with very little money if they have the talent.
And boy, they sure do.

1:08:01
I I can’t tell you how well directed and acted this production is.
It’s just a little gem, and I didn’t know what to expect.
It’s in this tiny, tiny theater, maybe the smallest theatre I’ve ever been in my life.

1:08:20
You know, on the Off Off Broadway level.
It’s called the MCS The Theatre, The Matthew Corzine Studio Theatre at 357 W 56 W 36th, St.
Excuse me, on the 2nd floor.

1:08:38
And it’s, it’s just so small, but they made it work.
And actually I know one of the actors, Patrick Clark, who played Rodolfo when we were speaking afterwards.
And I and I commended him on what a brilliant job they all did in in that tiny, tiny, tiny little space.

1:08:57
And he said, well, he, you know, we kind of like it in the sense that it makes the audience feel like they’re really in that apartment.
And it is.
Most of the action does take place in in one room of one apartment.
This is story of Eddie Carbone, who’s a longshoreman in Brooklyn in the 1950s.

1:09:16
And he’s living with his wife, Beatrice, and Beatrice’s niece Catherine.
And unfortunately, Eddie, over the years as she’s growing up, falls deeply in love with Catherine.
But he can’t face it.

1:09:32
And that this leads to tremendous tragedy when Beatrice’s two cousins, Marco and Rodolfo, come from Italy to stay with them.
They come into the country illegally because things are so bad in Italy that they they have to find work somehow.

1:09:53
So they desperately come to New York and they, they do find work, you know, as longshoremen.
But what happens is that Rodolfo and Catherine fall in love with each other and this drives Eddie absolutely insane.
And it leads to a very, very, very shocking tragedy.

1:10:13
People have said that.
And there there’s even in in some of the dialogue that what Miller was trying to do here was write the modern equivalent of a of a, a Greek tragedy with the kind of things that that happened in those with, you know incest etcetera, and that he couldn’t quite bring himself to, to have Eddie fall in love with his daughter.

1:10:38
So it it so she’s not his daughter.
She’s his niece.
But the point is still made, I think.
And it’s a it’s a really, really compelling and lasting drama as can be evidenced by the fact that as I said there has been 5 Broadway productions since 1955, which is quite a lot for a play.

1:11:00
And this production the the acting, most of the most of the cast are equity members of some non equity.
But I have to just really take my hat off to Douglas Dickerman, who’s phenomenal as Eddie Carbone, maybe physically different than others that I’ve seen before.

1:11:24
He reminded me of all people of John Slattery.
The actor John Slattery reminded me quite a bit of him in terms of his steel Gray hair and very intense eyes, but he was 100% valid as Eddie, maybe not especially coming across as Italian American, but certainly as a a a very authentic New Yorker with a perfect Brooklyn accent and the entire rest of the cast.

1:11:58
Leah Bonfiglio as Beatrice’s wife.
Sarah Romanello as Catherine, his daughter.
Paul Romanello in the role of Alfieri, the lawyer who’s sort of the narrator in the framing device of the show.

1:12:13
Hunan who leads us through the tragedy.
Just spectacular work from Danny Morrison, Geraldo and Patrick Clark as the immigrants, Marco and Rodolfo.
These people really seem, they seem like they were brothers.

1:12:34
Absolutely.
You could believe they were brothers.
Leah Bonfiglio made it seem absolutely as if she had been married to Eddie Carbone for years and that she was, you know, in the middle of this tragedy that she didn’t know how to prevent.

1:12:55
I can’t urge you.
I can’t stress how much I urge you to see this production, which is, aside from everything else, extremely affordable.
It’s as good as, if not better than every other production of this play that I’ve seen, including my own.

1:13:20
And I think I can’t give it any higher praise than that.
And it runs through May 19th at that space that I mentioned on West 36th St.
You will not be sorry if you see this production.

1:13:37
Wow.
Quite an endorsement for a small production and as Michael mentioned, very small theater.
So get your tickets if you can.
May 19th.
You have about a week left to check out the Soup theater company.
Do they serve soup in intermission?

1:13:54
No, just a little snacks and and stuff And you know, you never know.
You know, it’s so wonderful.
There is so much theater in New York, Needless to say, and so many of these tiny little productions and it’s impossible to check out all of them.
But you just never know.

1:14:10
You never, never know when you’re going to get an absolute gem like this one.”

More: https://broadwayradio.com/blog/2024/05/12/this-week-on-broadway-for-may-12-2024-the-great-gatsby/

 

Husbands & Wives

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A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Gynecologic Oncology Unit at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center of New York City

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“… one of the strongest ensembles I have seen in Atlanta. Not just for one of the smaller theatre companies here in town – but for any of them. Douglas Dickerman’s  is a wonderful stuttering and lost Don – whose dying mother shares the room with Karla’s…. Calibrating a performance for the specific venue has become it’s own bit of craft making and these actors do it expertly.”

atl stage review: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Gynecologic Oncology Unit at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center of New York City“

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atl stage review: Review Part 2 – A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Gynecologic Oncology Unit at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center of New York City“

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Dickerman is an exquisitely sensitive performer, who can turn a pause and a glance into a moment rich in meaning and implication.
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