But there are exceptions, and he then begins to narrate the story of Eddie Carbone, an Italian American longshoreman who lives with his wife Beatrice and her orphaned niece Catherine.Įddie is a good man who, although ostensibly protective and fatherly towards Catherine, harbors a growing passion for her as she approaches her 18th birthday. In the opening speech, Alfieri describes the violent history of the small Brooklyn community of Red Hook and tells us that the second-generation Sicilians are now more civilized, more American, and are prepared to 'settle for half' (half measures) and let the law handle their disputes. The action is narrated by Alfieri, who was raised in 1900s Italy but is now working as an American lawyer, thereby representing the 'Bridge' between the two cultures. Kazan later directed On the Waterfront, which dealt with the same subject.

Miller's interest in writing about the world of the New York docks originated with an unproduced screenplay that he developed with Elia Kazan in the early 1950s (titled The Hook) that addressed corruption on the Brooklyn docks. Eddie, the tragic protagonist, has an improper love of, and almost obsession with Catherine, his wife Beatrice's orphaned niece, so he does not approve of her courtship of Beatrice's cousin Rodolpho. It employs a chorus and narrator in the character of Alfieri. The play is set in 1950s America, in an Italian-American neighborhood near the Brooklyn Bridge in New York. The two-act version premiered in the New Watergate theatre club in London's West End under the direction of Peter Brook on October 11, 1956.

The run was unsuccessful, and Miller subsequently revised and extended the play to contain two acts this version is the one with which audiences are most familiar. It was first staged on September 29, 1955, as a one-act verse drama with A Memory of Two Mondays at the Coronet Theatre on Broadway. The apartment and environment of Eddie CarboneĪ View from the Bridge is a play by American playwright Arthur Miller. Coronet Theatre (now Eugene O'Neill Theatre)

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