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A View From The Bridge

WORKING THROUGH THE TEXT IN A PRACTICAL WAY

From the beginning the exercises assume a knowledge of the story-line and what happens to the characters. It is important, therefore, that before you start the following work you will have read the play. At the very least, you should have read the synopsis and character sketches that precede this section.

I try never to be dictatorial in the practical work. There is no version that is more right or more wrong than another. What the following work hopes to encourage is the habit of experiment. Too often, when you read a line it is the first meaning that becomes fixed in the mind. Often this could be just the most obvious and other subtler interpretations might add richness to the character.

It is important that you also get in the habit of recording the results of all the work you do. When experimenting with a character this is especially important. At the end you will need to go through all your work on each character once more, checking that your decisions make sense. People can be contradictory in real life, of course, but not to the point of absurdity!


ACT ONE

THE FIRST STAGE DIRECTIONS

Miller is very precise and detailed in the directions he gives as to the setting of the play. Nonetheless, there are already problems to resolve:

Clearly the living-room is the most important area for the majority of the play. It should therefore take up the majority of the stage. Miller mentions a forestage, on which is the desk representative of the lawyer's office. He also indicates the street passing in front of the Carbone's house which leads upstage too and off to the opposite side from the Carbone's. The street leading off in three directions give three useful exits and entrances. In addition, the doors to unseen rooms and the stairway leading up to the unseen apartment above the Carbone's provide various exits and entrances. The setting indicated shows Miller's superior grasp of staging and retaining visual interest for the audience.

In groups, following these clear stage directions, map out on a large sheet of paper how you would suggest all the elements discussed above. Make sure that you have considered the following:


When answering the above discuss the use of the following as potential answers to problems:

In your groups, come up with both a front-on view of the stage and a bird's eye view. These needn't be particularly artistic but should give some idea of the size of areas of the stage in relation with each other, colour and atmosphere of the setting.

As group homeworks, research the following from the internet or library books of photographs. Different aspects could be given to different groups. Find:

Having discussed and planned a setting using Miller's descriptions as your basis, discuss how far it is necessary to follow Miller's ideas. Are there other solutions to the multi-locational set?

How might it be to make a more symbolic setting for the play? Bearing in mind that you might change your mind by the time you have finished your studying of the play, what themes and locations are suggested by the play on your preliminary reading? Might you want to emphasise the poverty and narrowness of these people's lives? The presence of the docks and the sea? Brainstorm the kind of things you find at dockyards; cables and chains, huge storage containers, heavy machinery, huge looming shapes, the presence of the sea, gulls, rats, dark corners....etc. Could any of these elements be woven into your set design? What might be gained by so doing? What lost?

Try designing a setting in your groups again, this time using brooding dark shapes that suggest buildings, narrow alleyways between them. Could the interior of the Carbone's arise out of the opening of dark blocky shapes - like a doll's house opening - or by turning the shape around on a revolve? What would the effect of such a setting be on the audience and the way they viewed the play?

Could you build in other dock-land features, such as the cables and chains? As part of the design, might this help suggest the trapped nature of these people's lives?

Having tried both ways of designing for the play, discuss whether it is possible to meld some aspects of the symbolic approach with the naturalistic approach discussed earlier. Could, for instance, the dockyard looming shapes be a background to the Carbone apartment?

Finally, make a group decision now as to which you are going to go with for the purpose of practical work on the play. This decision of course does not prevent you having your own ideas that you would want to use for answering questions on the play in an examination.

Having made your decision, set out your studio or classroom space as far as you can, so that everyone has a clear idea of where places are in relation to each other. Use such things as chairs with a gap between them to indicate entrances. Use blocks, if you have them, to indicate where raised levels are used. Indicating the space you are working in is an important part of the practical work you will be undertaking. For that reason, it should be done at the beginning of each session that you are working on the play. Make sure that once you are satisfied with the use of space, you all jot down where the front room, street, Alfieri's office, etc, are located. Everyone needs to be clear on this.


ALFIERI'S OPENING SPEECH [Pages 3-4 Heinemann; 11-13 Penguin]

Louis and Mike, two longshoremen - that is to say, two casual dockland labourers - are 'pitching coins against the building on the left'. How you do this will depend very much on how far you have gone down the realistic route in your set design. Presumably, pitching coins is a kind of game of chance. The two players decide on heads or tails and whichever way up the coin falls will dictate who wins it.

What does this opening suggest to the audience? Poverty? Idleness? What could be the attitude of the players?

Try out the game [which could be played like jacks if you prefer] with the players:

Discuss the different atmospheres created by each opening. Then bring Alfieri's entrance in. How would the different attitudes affect the way the men nod to Alfieri? Which gives the best focus on the entrance and leads us into some understanding of Alfieri's standing in the community? Bear in mind that Alfieri himself says 'You see how uneasily they nod to me?'

Alfieri's speech acts as a prologue to the play and prepares us for the tragedy to come. Despite dwelling on the area and painting a picture for us of the type of people living in it, the conclusion of the speech is that this tragedy is as timeless and as inevitable as anything written by the ancient Greeks. By lifting the tragic hero, Eddie Carbone, out of his time and place and linking him with the ancient tragedies, we are invited to see him as a much larger than life character. Alfieri gives him a stature, almost a grandeur, that might appear strangely at odds with the poverty of the setting. But it is, of course, quite deliberate. Miller specialises in making genuine tragic heroes - flawed human beings that we feel a sympathetic link with - out of the most ordinary individuals: a travelling salesman in Death of a Salesman, an adulterous farmer in The Crucible, and here a docker, a longshoreman.

The best Greek tragedy was, according to Aristotle, written according to a number of rules. The three Unities - that of Time, Place and Action - which serve to magnify the emotional impact of a play, only partially apply to A View from the Bridge. Nearly all of the play takes place in one location - Unity of Place. Unity of Time is not adhered to: the play takes place over some weeks. Unity of Action is the concentration on one plot to the exclusion of all others. Shakespeare, for instance, often has a number of subplots going so does not adhere to this tragic principle. In A View from the Bridge the concentration on the character and motivation of Eddie Carbone gives the play all its driving force and its intensity - the inevitable unrolling of events towards a tragic conclusion that Aristotle means by Unity of Action. Most of all, Eddie Carbone fits the idea of the tragic hero in all but one way: he is not a king or general - a great man - like the heroes of Greek tragedy. But there is a kind of dignity about him; he is proud and honest and values his reputation. He is likeable and that is important. For the audience to feel for his fate, there has to be a sympathetic link with him as a person. And finally, he is flawed, as all tragic heroes are supposed to be. Eddie's flaws are his inability to face up to his possessive, even his sexual, feelings for the niece he has brought up and his pride, which will not allow him to back down.

Alfieri acts like a Chorus - a figure both inside and outside of the action. The speech helps to point out his role as an outsider: he is a lawyer, his wife considers he could work for a better class of clientele, for instance. Are there other ways of opening the play that might underline both the fact that he is outside the action and the other important fact that the Prologue shows one time and then flips us back into the past?

Alfieri already knows what happens in this story and hints at its tragedy, a device familiar to those who study Brecht. Knowing that the play is a tragedy and that Eddie Carbone is the tragic hero, we are invited to concentrate on WHY the tragedy happens rather than being sucked into the excitement of experiencing the whole thing in the here and now, as if happening for the first time before our eyes.

Try some alternative ways of opening the play:

Experiment with these and any other ideas that might occur to you and discuss the different findings you have made.

Working in groups, pick out all the parts of the speech that create an impression of Alfieri that might be useful for a character study of him. How fully drawn a character should he be? I think it is clear that he is to some extent a cipher, who points out some of the main themes of the play to us but he is also given a physicalisation by Miller and if his physical description seems somewhat typical, what he says shows that he is not a typical lawyer in his insistence on working with the poorer end of society. Untypical, too, is his sensitivity to things that can only be hinted at, half-known -- the stuff which makes up legend and which links human kind with our past and with archetypes.

Experiment with this man's physicalisation now. He is 'portly' but not fat - a belly perhaps. He is in his fifties. The speech tells us that he is relaxed about the surroundings in which he works - he no longer has a gun in his desk. The first thing he does when reaching his desk is to remove his hat and run his fingers through his hair - perhaps this is a personal habit - something he always does.

From these clues and any others you may have found, move Alfieri down the street and into his office. Take off his hat. Sit him in his office chair. Let him busy himself around his office for the moment. Concentrate on giving him a centre of weight, perhaps in the belly and see if that helps you. What does centring the weight at the base of the belly do to the way you carry your shoulders, angle your back? Try other weight centres too - such as further back in the bottom and decide which you like most.

Now experiment with the voice. He moved from Italy when he was 25, so there may still be a colouring of an Italian accent - not overdone though. Perhaps his Italian background will spill over into gestures - the characteristic shrugs and hand movements of the Latin. However he is thoughtful - not over-excitable - so this may slow his speech down. And he is good-humoured which may give a lightness to his tone, a smiling wryness.

Improvise a brief interchange with Mike and Louis now, to feel your way into the voice and the further physicalisation of the character. There is not much work to be had at the moment and Mike and Louis have not found anything today. Alfieri asks them about this and politely after their families. The two longshoremen's responses are cagey, giving as little as possible away. The scene ends as Alfieri makes his way to his office.

Next take any of the first part of the speech trying out the voice and gestures that you have found.

The theme of Justice is introduced by Alfieri. Look at the part of the speech - in the third paragraph - where Justice is first mentioned. At the end of that paragraph, what is the tone of 'Oh, there were many here who were justly shot by unjust men. Justice is very important here.'? Try it:

Which makes more sense to you?

Now look at the next to last paragraph, beginning 'My wife has warned me....' Work on the change of tone from the first part of the paragraph to the last part, centring on 'and yet...' Try it:

What you are trying to get over is the contrast between the mundane normality of his usual work and clientele and the awed sense of having touched a chord - something more mysterious, more poetic, more 'ancient' with Eddie Carbone's story. Experiment with making the eyes wondering, as if looking at far horizons, for this second half. You might want to break up the speech here too, apart from slowing it down - creating quite perceptible gaps, e.g. 'another lawyer....quite differently dressed.....heard the same complaint.....and sat there.....as powerless as I..... and watched it .... run.... its bloody course....

I may have exaggerated the gaps a little, but try it out for yourselves. Play with your voice to make the contrast clear. Take care about making it sound too melodramatic [the gaps if over-done might lead to that] but remember you are like a Greek Leader of the Chorus introducing a Tragedy.

The change of tone leads directly on to the light picking out Eddie Carbone as he pitches coins with Mike and Louis. As discussed before, you might want to play with freeze-framing too to emphasise Eddie further.

Try out groupings for this first sight of Eddie. Could he move into a prominent position, freeze or go into slow motion, and then move up to normal speed again? Might you want to freeze him more than once, highlighting him with a spotlight, during the final part of Alfieri's speech? Might slow-motion action help? Experiment with all this part and decide what you like best.


EDDIE & CATHERINE [Pages 5-6 Heinemann; 13-15 Penguin]

As Alfieri 'walks into darkness', it is as if someone has shouted 'Camera! Lights! Action!' Suddenly everything takes on colour and movement. This is where the front-room comes into sudden focus and the way up to it from the street. Discuss in your group how this is going to happen, given the set you have decided on. Are the different areas being picked out by light alone? If so - how does the quality of this light change from the opening? Is there a different colour quality to what is happening now - in the past - from the 'present', which was Alfieri's speech? Perhaps the past is seen in a warmer glow - more brightly coloured [plenty of reds and oranges mixed in], to contrast with a starker white or bluish light during the opening? Other contrasts are that it will be a larger area which is lit now after the opening which only lit the street and Alfieri's desk. The swell of light will instantly give a feeling of warmth and bustle.

Discuss how to do this. Would you want the light to respond to Eddie directly - that is to say, a warm light picks him out from the two longshoremen, then follows him to the steps and up, then floods onto the apartment as he opens the door? What would this suggest about

a]the importance of Eddie?

b] the idea that this is a story being repeated?

Or would you want to take the main emphasis away from just Eddie and to give Catherine more importance by bringing the light up in the apartment as soon as Alfieri goes - as she comes to the window to look out?

A compromise might be to bring the apartment lights up enough to see Catherine move to the window, but only to increase the light to bright as Eddie enters.

Discuss these possibilities and their implications fully before making a decision.

We know later in the Act that Catherine is dressed up because she has landed a job. Beatrice and she have gone out and bought a new skirt for her to wear there. Clearly her new look - her hair too - makes her look more grown-up and this in turn leads Eddie to look at her differently.

How does Eddie respond to her 'Hi, Eddie.'? Miller shows his response through a stage direction. Try this out:

How you see Eddie here in relation to Catherine will determine the tone of the first part of the scene. The first version will keep Catherine's delight in her own appearance unchanged; the second will inspire a soft but slightly anxious tone; the third could prompt defensiveness in his tone - as if he were a father ticking her off. If you have gone with the third version, 'Yeah, it's nice.' would be said grudgingly.

Whatever version you have liked, Eddie's pleasure in Catherine is either showing throughout or surfaces through all the worry he has over her. Either way, he is carried along by her pleasure and responds with warmth quite quickly.

Let's take a little time out to look at physicalising Eddie now. Miller has described him as 'forty - a husky, slightly overweight longshoreman'. The job of a longshoreman involves much heavy lifting - manual labour requiring considerable strength. This will be reflected in his body and will affect the way he moves, stands, sits. This does not mean an actor cannot give the feeling of where his weight is disposed, hinting at his strength, even if built more slightly.

Try investigating in pairs which muscles are used in lifting and carrying heavy objects. One to lift - something real around the studio - one to observe the arms, shoulders, to feel the back, the stomach, the chest. What is happening to the legs? Which muscles are engaged?

Having tried this out, think about how regular use of those muscles might affect the way the body develops. Our bodies change all the time and are profoundly affected by the type of work we do. Eddie's 'slight overweight' may be as much through over-development of the muscles of his upper torso and his belly as through any other cause. Experiment now with imagining the arms, chest, stomach, back and thighs are built up with slabs of muscle. Where would the majority of the bodyweight lie? How would this affect movement? Try walking, sitting, standing as Eddie, investigating where the centre of weight is, to give the impression of someone much larger and heavier than yourself.

Does the centre of weight mean that Eddie moves more slowly and deliberately than, say, Catherine? Try out in pairs showing the contrast between the two through movement alone - walking, sitting, standing. Standing shows as clearly as anything where the centre of weight is. If Eddie's is in the chest, or the shoulders - whatever you have decided, where is Catherine's? If you have girls in your group, they will be about her age. Watch the way these move? Do they lead from the hips, the chest, the feet - as they walk? Which way of walking [without putting it on or exaggerating] is naturally 'waviest'?

When, by experimenting as suggested above, you are happy with your physicalisation of Eddie and of Catherine, improvise a brief scene between the two of them. Eddie has come back from work tired. Catherine has a piece of schoolwork to show him that she is pleased with but first she settles him in his chair, offers him his slippers and tells him that supper is nearly ready....

Catherine is bubbling with the news she has of her first job, which she is withholding from him until Beatrice comes in. Eddie, too, is full of news and he,too, does not come out with this until after he has reproved Catherine about her dress and too open attitude to men.

In Eddie's case, the news he has jumps right out of his head at the sight of Catherine in her short skirt, though the knowledge that two extra males are going to arrive at the house may be part of his reason for his warning against her friendliness. In Catherine's case, I think her news is bubbling behind the whole scene. Why does she not want to talk about it to Eddie until B., who already knows the news, is there? Is it because she wants B.'s protection - she suspects Eddie will have doubts about the job and want her to finish her schooling? How do people who are a little wound-up, nervous, behave?

Bearing in mind that both of these people have news, put the opening section of the play, up to B.'s entrance, into your own words. Concentrate on the complex emotions that Eddie is feeling - a mixture of love and warmth as for a daughter, a dawning awareness of her as a sexual creature, and anxiety that others will notice her emerging womanhood too. Catherine is altogether more straight-forward here. Her love for Eddie is genuine and uncomplicated, like daughter to father; her anxiety is also similar to the sort that a daughter would feel to an over-protective and possibly disapproving parent.

It might help you to try one or both of the following improvisation suggestions. Both are about hiding feelings from another. Use threesomes to explore this. In each case, the weightiness of the hidden news spills over into the acting, so that the parent notices something is up:

Try to explore something of the feelings Eddie has for Catherine by improvising the following. Use largeish groups to act this out:

Finally, using the ideas you have gleaned about how Eddie and Catherine should behave in this scene, read and act through the scene as far as possible, using the real words of the text.


BEATRICE RECEIVES NEWS OF THE COUSINS' ARRIVAL [Pages 6-8 Heinemann, 15-17 Penguin]

For the moment, Eddie's news takes over from that of Catherine. The excitement of the imminent arrival of the strange cousins from Italy chases all other concerns out of everyone's heads. The reason for this is Beatrice's reaction to the news. She is excited, fearful and anxious that her home won't pass muster.

What impression do we get of Beatrice here? Miller doesn't describe her but we can assume that she is around the same age as Eddie, that is late thirties or fortyish. She, like Eddie, has been born and brought up in the U.S.A. and clearly has no idea what it is like back in Italy. They may be poor in American terms, but not in terms of the land of their fathers. Eddie, rubbing shoulders with different people all the time and working where the winds of far-off shores often ruffle his consciousness, is far more worldly-wise than she is.

Reading these pages together, to where Beatrice 'hurries Catherine out', make a list of what different concerns surface in her: their safety.... a tablecloth.... and so on. Which are the most important things to her? Why does she fuss so much about small things?

Having gone through these things, decide what is really concerning her. Why is she so nervous?

Look at the line:'I'm just afraid if it don't turn out good you'll be mad at me.' What is the 'it' that might not 'turn out good?' Her hospitality? The safety of the cousins? Their own safety as a family? Eddie's pride and honour as an Italian?

Try the line:

Decide which seems to suit best.

Of course, the fact that this sentence is kept so vague makes it more prophetic. 'It' doesn't 'turn out good', though it is certainly through no fault of hers.

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