The steady, uncomplicated life of David Field as Brooklyn longshoreman Eddie Carbone in Arthur Miller’s classic drama A View From The Bridge comes unstuck with the arrival of two of his wife Beatrice’s (Toni Scanlan) relatives- her cousins Marco (Glenn Hazeldine) and Rodolpho (Adriano Cappelletta)- illegal immigrants from Italy. At first, Eddie and Beatrice’s home is welcoming and peaceful but when an attraction forms between the suave Rodolpho and Catherine (Katie Fitchett), Eddie’s beautiful grown up orphaned niece who lives in the family home, and whom Beatrice and him have raised since she was baby, Eddie’s moods take increasingly darker tones.

This 1960 Miller play is a contemporary version of a traditional Greek tragedy. Located on a wide platform, perched above the main stage, are the offices of Eddy’s lawyer, Alfieri (Alan Flower). With the drama unfolding, Alfieri, in the manner of a Greek chorus, comments on Eddy’s descent into darkness.

Alfieri tells the audience, early in the play, ‘there are times when you want to spread an alarm, but nothing has happened, I knew then and there’. Alfieri’s later telling comments, ‘truth would be better than blood’, in the play’s key scene, when Marco fells Eddy, cut through the play like the knife. Eddy’s failure to acknowledge that his feelings for Catherine are too intense, proves to be his downfall.

This Ensemble Theatre production, directed by Sandra Bates, did Miller’s classic play justice. It’s one of those plays’s that gives one a case of the goose bumps. Katie Fitchett’s fragility, Alan Flower’s gravity, Glenn Hazeldine’s volatility, and Toni Scanlan’s despair were my choice from the cast. David Field gave a thorough performance as Eddy however I felt that he was somewhat miscast, I just couldn’t pass him for a Brooklyn wharfie after seeing him in so many very broadly Aussie roles.