A VIEW FROM AFAR

We were especially excited about seeing A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE because we were going with four dear friends, Flo Feinberg & Ben Geizhals, Kristene Doyle and Mark Terjesen. The evening started out fabulously; we arrived at Glass House Tavern for our 5:30 reservation and bumped into Nancy Ploeger and Nancy Ryan, who we believe are now shadowing us not only in theatre but in dining, as well. No sooner did we exchange hugs and kisses then we spotted Richard Thomas sitting less than a foot away. We didn’t want to be rude and interrupt his obviously quiet dinner with his adorable son Montana, but we had to tell him how much we adored him in RACE (Richard – hope you take us up on our offer to do a guest HOUSE SEATS blog!).

Dinner went downhill from there. The service was horrible and the waiter rude. The food was only mediocre and little did we know the best was yet to come. We were so rushed that we barely made it to the theatre in time. Once shown to our seats we were reminded of the only negative of buying tickets for 6 rather than 2 - it is very difficult to get the seats we like. We are spoiled. We admit it. Our usual seats are rows 1-5, on the aisle, of course. We forgot there is actually a Row O! OMG, our seats were almost in the lobby! And what was that overhang making it difficult to see and hear?

Onward. The set and costumes immediately brought us to the 1950’s Brooklyn waterfront, which is the setting for Miller’s dark story of post World War 2 familial relationships. Liev Schreiber and Scarlett Johansson were wonderful in the lead roles of Eddie Carbone and his niece Catherine. Jessica Hecht and Michael Cristofer were also truly fabulous as supporting players. Although Schreiber is a seasoned Broadway actor, this was Johansson’s Broadway debut and this role truly showcased her real talent.

Cathy thought the show was rather slow although Jeff enjoyed the tempo and found it to be typical of a good Arthur Miller play. The only negative was that the movement of the set at times disrupted the flow of the show.

As Cristofer’s character Alfieri, the lawyer, says in his narrative, you know what’s going to happen step by step before it does. So it is no secret that once Eddie “drops a dime” on his illegal immigrant visitors, he is going to die - and you can pretty well figure out that it will be at the very end of the show. The stabbing scene by the way was a bit overacted. It stopped just short of Beatrice or Catherine breaking into "There's A Place For Us" a la Maria in WEST SIDE STORY. Despite all this, one lonely woman was caught off guard and screamed “Oh My God” just as Eddie thrashed and died on the stage. This scene however; was not enough to deter from the overall power of the show and the talent of the cast.

We left the theater happy and said goodbye to our friends. Four hours later, our dinner at Glass Tavern returned to haunt us. We were both so sick for 36 hours we prayed for someone to do to us what had been done to Eddie Carbone! The food poisoning delayed this blog and despite a valiant effort, caused us to miss our next show, OUR TOWN!

Don’t miss this limited run production of A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE but do stay away from Glass House Tavern!

Next up: FELA! THE MUSICAL.