A View From The Bridge-Ustinov, Bath/Theatre Royal Haymarket

I saw the matinee of this today and really liked it. As has been noted, it's a very straightforward rendition with none of the stylistic flourishes of the Young Vic production but I think it stands up pretty well even against that. I thought Dominic West was marvellous. I would nevertheless agree with merrilywereadalong above who noted that it loses some focus after the interval.

Caught this on Thursday evening. My thoughts track fairly close with those of this board: that Dominic West was terrific (as was Pierro Niel-Mee as Marco) and that the production was a success on account of its straight-forward (good) acting. My only reservation was the set. Yes, I get that using the same set for both the inside/outside meant that the whole stage was a sort of panopticon, with the entire neighborhood (including us!) peering in on the private, troubled world of the family. But since the creative team was going for the feel of depressing/depressed, the big brown wall and fire escape didn't provide much visual interest, and the lighting had to do a lot of work, particularly in the 2nd half. Since the production was so traditional anyway, I guess I would have preferred a traditional scene change as well (like a revolve).

But this is now my third "traditional" View from the Bridge (I caught the other two in regional productions), and this was the most affecting; it made me see the "Old World" (=masculine) values of Marco in a way that I hadn't considered before. I hadn't before absorbed how clearly Marco is figured as everything Eddie would *want* to be -- excepting his citizenship status. So Eddie's crisis of masculinity/sexuality plays out across the two acts as Marco becomes larger-than-life and Eddie struggles with his inner demons.

So: four stars. And saw it from the mid-stalls (the view from the stalls was great. The view from the bridge, is, of course, tragic ;-).

Yes same here. But overall the Ivo van Hove production was even better - two of the greatest productions of all those I've seen were of the same play which says something about it. But Miller was never entirely happy with it - it started as a one-act drama in verse and he then re-wrote it several times and he was never happy with the the way the Greek elements from the original draft were integrated into the final version and in fact he wrote and produced a third version with a different ending which is not the one we usually see today.