Theater review: North Coast Rep’s ‘View from the Bridge’ a timely tragedy

A scene from North Coast Repertory Theatre’s “A View from the Bridge,” from left: Steve Froehlich, Matthew Salazar-Thompson, Lowell Byers, Coby Rogers, Frank Corrado, Marie Zolezzi, Richard Baird and Margot White. (Aaron Rumley)

By Pam Kragen | [email protected] | The San Diego Union-Tribune

UPDATED: September 18, 2024 at 2:58 PM PDT

Arthur Miller’s high-tension play “A View from the Bridge” was written 69 years ago, but the issues it grapples with could just as well be ripped from the angry campaign rhetoric firing up this fall’s presidential election.

In the 1955 drama, a working-class American man feels increasingly angry and powerless about the changes happening in his life, home and family caused by an undocumented immigrant who he suspects may be homosexual. But much of his fury is misdirected and wrong, and his ultimate actions have terrible consequences for all.

A new production of “View” opened Saturday at North Coast Repertory Theatre in Solana Beach. In my memory, it’s the first time the play has been professionally produced locally since 2003. Directed by David Ellenstein, the gripping, two-hour staging is very well cast, authentically designed and it moves swiftly and ominously to its dark conclusion.

Written in the style of a modern Greek tragedy, it’s the story of Eddie Carbone, a middle-aged longshoreman in Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood in the mid-1950s. Eddie is a pillar in the Italian American community, and when his wife Beatrice’s cousins, brothers Marco and Rodolpho, arrive illegally from Italy, he agrees to secretly take them in and find them work at the docks. But when Beatrice’s 17-year-old niece Catherine — who Eddie is not-so-secretly sexually obsessed with — falls in love with the the flashy-dressing Rodolpho, Eddie will stop at nothing to keep them apart.

In his 28th stage role at North Coast Rep, a commanding Richard Baird gradually builds his character’s seething resentment from a mild simmer to the boiling point. He’s perfectly matched dramatically by Margot White, who gives an aching performance as Eddie’s wife Beatrice, who’s desperate to stop the conflict she knows is coming.

Marie Zolezzi is warm and gentle-hearted as the innocent Catherine, and Lowell Byers has a taciturn nobility as Marco, the elder brother from Italy. North Coast Rep veteran actor Frank Corrado has a kind, world-weary presence as Alfieri, an elderly attorney who serves as the play’s narrator and Greek chorus.

Coby Rogers is boyish and exuberant as Rodolpho and Steve Froelich and Matthew Salazar-Thompson complete the cast in multiple roles.

Marty Burnett’s multi-locale scenic design incorporates the Carbone’s apartment, the docks and elements of the Brooklyn Bridge. Matthew Novotny designed lighting, Elisa Benzoni designed the period costumes and Ian Scott designed sound.

As the narrator Alfieri says in the play, the story of Eddie Carbone plays out with a certainty of fate that may not surprise the audience, but just watching Baird take his fully formed and deeply flawed character on that journey is worth the price of ission.