classic drama
The greatest American theatre author of the 20th century, Arthur Miller, has contributed several impressive works to the annals of international drama theatre. Brno City Theatre’s audience will know him at the very least for his Death of a Salesman and The Crucible. Now we have chosen to perform another of his exceptional, great human dramas, A View from the Bridge.
The main character of the play is Eddie Carbone, who is a dockworker in 1950s Brooklyn, New York, and a second-generation Italian immigrant. Eddie is living in an outwardly harmonious household with his wife Beatrice and his orphaned niece Catherine, with whom he begins to gradually fall in love. Two other Italian immigrants named Marco and Rodolfo are living in their house illegally.
At first, Eddie welcomes his Sicilian cousins to their dreamed-of land of freedom, but things soon start to go sour. Handsome Rodolfo begins dating Catherine, and Eddie slowly but surely is overtaken by an unbearable passion, which he is of course unable to speak of, or resist. It is this passion which mercilessly conveys him to a tragic end…
Of course, Eddie’s story isn’t just a drama about an individual’s obsession, but also a portrayal of a community with strict rules in which “not all laws are written in books”, as Marco aptly states. It also isn’t the tragedy of an exceptional individual, but rather of a totally ordinary person, and it will intensively affect anyone who has ever secretly felt love, even for a short time, for someone unattainable or untouchable.
This passionate, deep, humanistic drama with excellent opportunities for quality acting performances has been offering audiences a thrilling spectacle ever since it was written.
