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EDUCATION RESOURCE PACK
written by Helen Cadbury
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ARTHUR MILLER’S A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE
INTRODUCTION This pack has been developed to help you to get the best out of your visit to see A View From The Bridge. Full of essential material to enable students to understand the historical and social context of the play, there are suggestions for discussion, research and follow up work in English and Drama. With thanks to: Elaine Grant at Mousetrap Theatre Projects Camilla Gordon-Lennox at AKA Dawn Farrow at AKA Katy Nelson at York Theatre Royal Jonathan Jaynes Lindsay Posner Title Artwork: Richie Hopson Rehearsal Photos: Marc Brenner
CONTENTS Synopsis
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Characters
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Cast and Creative Team
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Director’s Vision - an Interview with Lindsay Posner
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Interview with actor, Jonathan Jaynes
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The Writer - Arthur Miller - a chronology
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Context - the writer’s life
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Historical and Social Context - Place
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Historical and Social Context - People
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Historical and Social Context - Coming to America
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Historical and Social Context - Codes of Honour
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Learning Resources - Text Bytes
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Learning Resources - A Rough Guide to Greek Tragedy
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Learning Resources - Working from Themes
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Learning Resources - Status
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Learning Resources Follow up exercises after seeing the play
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Learning Resources Resources - Writing a Review
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Further Resources
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About Mousetrap Theatre Projects
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Education Resource Pack
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ARTHUR MILLER’S A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE
SYNOPSIS
The central character of A View from the Bridge is a longshoreman (dockworker) named Eddie Carbone. The story is set in the early 1950s in Red Hook, Brooklyn, New York. When two of Eddie’s wife's Italian cousins are smuggled into the country as illegal immigrants (or submarines, as they are known in waterfront slang), he sees it as a point of honour to make room for them in his home. The two cousins move in with Eddie, his wife, Beatrice and her teenage niece, Catherine, who he has brought up and who he has come to love, he thinks, as a daughter. One of the illegal immigrants, Marco, has a family in Italy for whom he is working; the other, Rodolpho, is young, handsome, and blonde. He is also single and he wants to become an American. He and Catherine fall in love. Eddie is violently opposed to this romance. He tries to convince himself and those around him that this is because Rodolpho is “not right” – by which he means he thinks he’s homosexual and that he’s just trying to marry Catherine to get his U.S. citizenship. Beatrice senses her husband’s sub-conscious incestuous feelings towards his niece . Together with Alfieri, the neighbourhood lawyer, who acts as a narrator to the story, she wants Eddie to let Catherine marry Rodolpho. Eddie makes a fatal choice and decides to go against all the codes of the Italian American community he has been born into. He reports the illegal immigrants to the authorities. Marco feels he has no option but to regain his honour by taking revenge on Eddie. In the fight which follows, Eddie is killed when Marco turns Eddie’s own knife on him.
Ken Stott as Eddie Carbone in rehearsal with Hayley Atwell as Catherine Education Resource Pack
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ARTHUR MILLER’S A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE
CHARACTERS Eddie Carbone- Eddie is a hard-working, Italian-American longshoreman (dockyard worker) who puts food on the table for his family, a roof over their heads, and provides an education for his orphaned niece, Catherine, whom he and his wife have raised. But underneath his tough exterior Eddie's emotions are in conflict. Catherine – Is a naïve young woman of seventeen. Her mother was the sister of Beatrice, Eddie’s wife. After her mother’s death she has been raised by her aunt and uncle. She is growing up and ready to go out to work (although Eddie would like to keep her at home). She falls in love with Rodolpho. Beatrice Carbone - Eddie's wife and aunt of Catherine. She has lived the life of a traditional Italian wife, but even though she has never worked outside the home, she wants Catherine to have those opportunities she has missed. She is strong, wise and loyal, but her loyalty to her husband is challenged by his feelings for her niece. Rodolpho - Beatrice's cousin from Sicily, Southern Italy. An illegal immigrant, he would like to become a citizen. He falls in love with Catherine and with America. He enjoys dancing, singing and making people laugh. He is a bit of an oddity in the macho world of the waterfront, which leads Eddie to accuse him of being homosexual. Marco - Rodolpho's older brother. He’s physically strong and he has come to America so that he can earn money to send home to his wife and children, who live in desperate poverty. He believes in the codes of honour of his homeland and feels compelled to fight Eddie for breaking the unspoken law of loyalty to family. Alfieri - The narrator of the play and a family friend of the Carbones. Alfieri is the wise lawyer who tries to advise Eddie. He also acts as a narrator or Greek chorus. Louis and Mike - Co-workers and friends of Eddie. During the final moments of the play, they try to prevent Eddie from attacking Marco with a knife. First Immigration Officer - A Manhattan immigration officer who takes Rodolpho and Marco away after Eddie's anonymous phone call. Second Immigration Officer - The second officer working with the first officer, who helps him round up the illegal immigrants. Mr. Lipari - A neighbour and local butcher hiding an illegal immigrant family member in a nearby apartment. Mrs. Lipari - Mr. Lipari's wife. Education Resource Pack
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THE PRODUCTION CAST ANTONIO MAGRO Louis/ understudy Marco/ understudy Mr. Lipari/Submarine ENZO SQUILLINO JNR Mike/ understudy 2nd Officer/ understudy Mr. Lipari/ Submarine ALLAN CORDUNER Alfieri KEN STOTT Eddie Carbone HAYLEY ATWELL Catherine MARY ELIZABETH MASTRANTONIO Beatrice GERARD MONACO Marco JOHN MORAITIS Tony/ Mr Lipari/ understudy Alfieri/Louis HARRY LLOYD Rodolpho JONATHAN JAYNES First Immigration Officer/ understudy Eddie PHILIP DESMEULES Second Immigration Officer/ understudy Rodolpho JULIA BARRIE Mrs Lipari/ understudy Beatrice PETER BASHAM Submarine/understudy ABBY FORKNALL ASM/understudy Catherine
CREATIVE TEAM LINDSAY POSNER Director CHRISTOPHER ORAM Designer ANDREW D EDWARDS Associate Designer RICHARD KENT Associate Designer PETER MUMFORD Lighting Designer ADAM CORK Sound Designer TERRY KING Fight Director PENNY DYER Voice Coach
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DIRECTOR’S VISION INTERVIEW WITH LINDSAY POSNER DIRECTOR OF A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE How do you cast a play you are directing? Casting is a meticulous process, so you need to have an idea of how you want to interpret each character in the play and what role each character serves in the play. Then, because I know so many actors, I’ll come up with a list of half a dozen people who I think who would be good in the main roles. Normally I would just offer the actor a role because I know their work. For a younger role, or if we’re looking for someone straight from drama school, then I audition, once, twice or even three times to find someone for the part.
How does the set design inform the telling of the story?
It’s very important, whatever the play, that you decide what sort of environment you need to create. There are all sorts of questions you ask from a very basic level, even do you need a set at all and if so, why? Then, should it be naturalistic or should it be stylised? How are you going to tell the story of a particular play? Should it be updated or should it be rooted in its social and historical context? You have to ask all those questions before you actually start to decide on the look of the thing. Also you ask questions about furniture, do you need furniture? Do you need props? So you start very basically and then you gradually work through and its a very long a painstaking process. Design is also determined by the theatre it’s going to be performed in. Obviously if it’s a small studio space is going to demand a very different design to a large theatre in the West End. In this particular play there are two key elements to the piece, one is the interior cramped room in which these poverty stricken people live and the other area is the external space, where the action takes place on the street. We need to give a sense of a street in a poor area in Red Hook, in the late 1940s. (With this play it is very important that one doesn’t update it because otherwise the meaning of the play would go out the window.) Because we’ve got space on the stage, we’ve been able to build a structure that fully realises both of these two key elements. Education Resource Pack
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DIRECTOR’S VISION INTERVIEW WITH LINDSAY POSNER CONTINUED It’s been said that Miller lays down very specific dramatic boundaries. How much space is there for you as a director to be creative within those boundaries? It depends what you mean by creative! I think it’s a great, great play, so there’s an enormous depth to be mined and because the characters are so complex, there are different ways of playing them throughout . The greater the play, the more scope there is for a director, because you can burrow very deep into it.
What about the kiss between Eddie and Rodolpho, what do you think it means and is it a hard moment to rehearse? In rehearsal the actors are very bold and brave, of course. In terms of what it means, I think that in Eddie’s head, in his conscious head and in his drunken state, he’s trying to prove to Catherine that she’s engaged to a gay man and he’s testing Rodolpho out to see if he’s gay. The kiss convinces him that he is. That’s what he thinks consciously. Sub-consciously, who knows? Maybe he finds him attractive, it’s possible, but Eddie himself doesn't know that. What the character is playing, in his conscious state, is that he’s trying to show Catherine, once and for all, that this man’s gay and she’s being tricked.
What is the function of Alfieri as a narrator? He helps to take the play into the realms of Greek tragedy. It takes it from being a purely naturalistic drama written in the fifties, to being more universal and portentous. It’s much more like a classical play than a 20th century play.
How relevant is the play to a modern audience and particularly to young people in the audience? I think as long as we have a complex consciousness, then Miller will always be relevant, in the way that Chekhov is always relevant. There are also topical, political themes about illegal immigration and the universal theme of breaking taboos within a family set-up, the power of a taboo and what a taboo might mean today. I think it’s always relevant because Miller is such an expert at dissecting the human heart and mind.
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INTERVIEW WITH ACTOR, JONATHAN JAYNES Playing the first Immigration officer and understudying Eddie Carbone.
How did you come to be cast in A View From The Bridge? I auditioned for the job in my final week of being at York Theatre Royal in Miller’s Death of a Salesman. This fact definitely helped me get the job because I was already tuned in to Arthur Miller’s writing and I'd spent the past seven weeks working on a Brooklyn accent, which all meant I could go into the audition feeling relaxed and not try too hard. Auditions are a fine line between coming across too relaxed and so keen that any director would be scared to use you. What is your role in this production? In this production my part is small, but being Arthur Miller, it’s integral to the story. I arrive when emotions are high and we're reaching the climax of the play. So far, we've worked on the scene four or five times and we're just about to start running the whole of the act so we can start to see things in their proper context. The other part of my job is to learn the part of Eddie Carbone. Every part including mine has an understudy so that if anybody is ill the show can still go on. You have to know the lines and what the blocking is of the person you're understudying. I have a lot to learn, so I'm spending a lot of time with my head buried in the play and mumbling to myself. I get a lot of funny looks on the tube! You’ve recently played Charley in Death of A Salesman at York Theatre Royal, how do the two plays compare? The stories both happen in Brooklyn but definitely different parts. A View from The Bridge is on the docks, blue collar. The mafia control who works and who doesn't, it has a strong Italian flavour. Where the story is placed is very important. Death of a Salesman is middle class in comparison, cultural history isn't important, the tragedy is taking place in Willy Loman’s head. Eddie Carbone’s downfall happens inside a world governed by honour and justice, where your word means everything.
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THE WRITER ARTHUR MILLER - CHRONOLOGY 1915 October 17th, Arthur Miller is born in Harlem, New York son of Isidore and Augusta Miller. His parents’ families are from Poland. His father has built up a very successful clothing business. 1919 As a young child, he becomes aware of the theatricality of the Synagogue. 1923 Sees first play, a melodrama at the Schubert Theater. 1928 Father's clothing business struggling and the family move to Brooklyn. The Depression causes a huge drop in the family fortune. 1933 Graduates from high school. Works in an auto-parts warehouse. Strongly moved by the working and living conditions of his fellow workers, drawn towards socialist politics. 1934 Enters University of Michigan to study journalism. 1936 Writes No Villain in six days and receives Hopwood Award in Drama. 1937 At University of Michigan he takes a play writing class with Professor Kenneth T. Rowe. Rewrite of No Villain,called They Too Arise, receives a major award from the Bureau of New Plays. Honors at Dawn receives Hopwood Award in Drama. 1938 Graduates with a B.A. in English. Turns down an offer to work as a scriptwriter for Twentieth Century Fox, in Hollywood, joins the Federal Theater Project in New York City. 1939 Marries Mary Grace Slattery, whom he met at University. Writes The Golden Years. 1941 Works at Brooklyn Naval Yard. Over the next few years writes several radio plays. Moves with his wife to an apartment in Brooklyn, close to the Brooklyn Bridge. 1943 Starts writing The Half-Bridge (unfinished) 1944 Daughter, Jane, is born. The Man Who Had All The Luck opens on Broadway but closes after six performances. Nevertheless it receives the Theater Guild National Award. 1947 All My Sons opens and receives the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award, and the Donaldson Award. Son, Robert, is born. Goes to work for a short time in an inner city factory assembling beer boxes for minimum wage. Explores the Red Hook area to find out about the world of the longshoremen. 1948 Trip to Europe. In Italy, researches material for a screenplay The Hook, about dockworkers in Brooklyn. 1949 Death of a Salesman opens, receives several awards including the Pulitzer Prize. 1950 Adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's An Enemy of the People opens. The Hook fails to reach production due to pressure from the House Un-American Activities Committee, set up to flush out a perceived communist influence on American Society. 1951 Meets Marilyn Monroe. First film production of Death of a Salesman, with Frederic March, for Columbia Pictures. 1953 The Crucible (an allegorical attack on the rising paranoia in the U.S. about communism) opens and receives several prestigious awards. 1954 Unable to attend Belgian premiere of The Crucible, as denied passport by the US. 1955 The one-act A View From the Bridge opens as part of a double bill in New York.
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CHRONOLOGY CONTINUED 1956 Divorces Mary Slattery. Marries Marilyn Monroe. Appears before HUAC. Goes to England with Monroe where he revises A View From the Bridge into two acts for Peter Brook to direct in London. 1957 Arthur Miller's Collected Plays published. Convicted of contempt of Congress and given a 30-day suspended sentence for refusing to name names to HUAC. Short story The Misfits is published in Esquire. 1958 United States Court of Appeals overturns his contempt conviction. 1959 Receives the Gold Medal for Drama from the National Institute of Arts and Letters. 1961 Divorces Marilyn Monroe. Misfits (film) opens. Sidney Lumet directs a movie version of A View From a Bridge. Mother, Augusta Miller dies. 1962 Marries Inge Morath. Marilyn Monroe dies. Son Daniel born. 1963 Daughter, Rebecca, is born. Jane's Blanket (children's book) published. 1964 Visits the Mauthausen death camp with Inge Morath, covers the Nazi trials in Frankfurt for the New York Herald Tribune. After the Fall and Incident at Vichy open. 1965 Elected president of International P.E.N., the international literary organization. 1966 First sound recording of A View From the Bridge. Father, Isidore Miller dies. 1967 Visits Moscow to persuade Soviet writers to join P.E.N. 1968 The Price opens. 1969 In Russia published (reportage with photographs by Inge Morath). Visited Czechoslovakia to show support for writers there and briefly meets Václav Havel. Retires as President of P.E.N. 1970 Works banned in the Soviet Union as a result of his work to free dissident writers. 1977 In the Country published (reportage with Inge Morath). 1978 The Theater Essays of Arthur Miller, edited by Robert A. Martin published. 1979 Chinese Encounters published (reportage with Inge Morath). 1981 The second volume of Arthur Miller's Collected Plays published. 1983 Directs Death of a Salesman at the People's Art Theater in Beijing. 1987 One act plays I Can't Remember Anything and Clara are produced under the title Danger: Memory! Publishes Timebends: A Life (autobiography). University of East Anglia names its centre for American studies, The Arthur Miller Centre. 1991 The Ride Down Mount Morgan opens in London. 1992 Homely Girl is published (novella). 1994 Broken Glass opens. 1997 Revised version of The Ride Down Mount Morgan opens in America. 1998 Major revival of A View From the Bridge wins two Tony Awards. 1999 Death of a Salesman revived on Broadway for the play's 50th anniversary, and wins Tony for Best Revival of a Play. 2001 Untitled, a one act play written for Václav Havel appears in New York. 2002 Inge Morath dies. 2005 Miller dies of heart failure in his Connecticut home on 10th February. Education Resource Pack
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CONTEXT
THE WRITER’S LIFE
Arthur Miller was born into a prosperous Jewish family in Harlem, New York. His father had come from Poland and arrived in New York with nothing but a sewing machine. He was to build up a successful clothing business, manufacturing coats. The Depression took its toll and the business collapsed in 1928, forcing the family to move to a more down-market address in Brooklyn. Miller described it as a fall from grace for his family, but he was aware that around him there were other families who saw it as a step up from the slums.
“I don’t think a dramatist creates anybody simply out of a real person. The character comes from inside yourself and all of it is a distillation of everything you knew up to that moment.” Miller
In 1932, at the age of seventeen, Miller met a young man on the street and took a trip with him to Coney Island where he saw desperately poor people sleeping rough under the boardwalk. It was the beginning of his interest in Marxist politics. At high school, Miller enjoyed football but failed algebra and was regarded by his teachers as unpromising. At the time he came across Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment - he later said: “it must have been too wet outside to play ball.” He decided he wanted to study literature.
Meanwhile, the loss of the family fortune meant that Miller would have to work alongside his studies. At the age of fourteen he had sold coats for his father. After high school he enrolled for evening classes at the City College but found it too difficult to continue as he was working all day. Later he worked in an auto-parts warehouse in Brooklyn and then spent two years in the huge Chadwick-Delamater auto-parts warehouse in New York. He worked for fifteen dollars a week to save up enough money to go away to college.
At the University of Michigan, Miller wrote his first play, No Villain, about a coat manufacturer whose business is threatened by a strike of shipping clerks. He won the Hopwood Minor Award for Drama, which included a prize of $250.
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CONTEXT THE WRITER’S LIFE CONTINUED He described the experience of finishing his first play, written in a week, as a “magical force of making marks on a paper and reaching into another human being, making him see what I had seen and feel my feelings - I had made a new shadow on the earth.”
Miller went on to write several more plays at University. It was there that he also met his first wife, Mary Slattery, who shared his Marxist politics. They married in 1939 and moved to an apartment in Brooklyn, close to the Brooklyn Bridge. When war broke out Miller was unable to join the army on health grounds, although his beloved brother Kermit saw active service. Miller himself volunteered to work long night shifts at the naval shipyard. He remained rooted in an understanding of working class life.
In the early 1950s, while crossing the East River on the Brooklyn Bridge, to the sound of cables singing in the wind, Miller noticed graffiti which read: “Dove Pete Panto?” - where is Pete Panto. He began to ask around and discovered that Pete Panto was an Italian American who worked on the waterfront. He had stood up to the corrupt union bosses and lost his life in the process. He began to research the life of the longshoremen around the Red Hook district. This led to the creation of a screenplay, The Hook, which took him to Hollywood and his meeting with the film star Marilyn Monroe. The Hook was never made, because of unwanted interference by the House UnAmerican Activities Committee but it led to the creation of Eddie Carbone and a one act play called, A View From The Bridge. Miller’s marriage to Mary Slattery was failing and in 1956 he divorced her and travelled to London with his new wife, Marilyn Monroe. While she worked on a film with Laurence Olivier. he developed A View From The Bridge into a two-act play, directed by Peter Brook. POINT FOR DISCUSSION What themes and events in A View From the Bridge have their roots in Miller’s life experience? Education Resource Pack
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HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL CONTEXT
“What could make old brick slums a thing of nightmare and portent...? It is a babel of sound and filth, and sends out strange cries to answer the lapping oily waves at its grimy piers and the monstrous organ litanies of the harbour whistles.” H.P. Lovecraft (from his short story The Horror at Red Hook (1925)
THE PLACE
RED HOOK From his nearby Brooklyn apartment, Arthur Miller was able to research the lives of the people of Red Hook, the inspiration for A View From the Bridge.
The Dutch established the village of Red Hook (Roode Hoek) in 1636. The area was named for its red clay soil and the hook shape of its peninsular corner of Brooklyn that projects into the East River.
Red Hook was the area of Brooklyn close to the docks, where thousands of dock workers and their families lived in old brick built tenements.
It was a tough place, where Al Capone got his start as a small time criminal. In 1950, at the peak of work on the docks, 21,000 people lived in the neighbourhood and the docks were among the busiest in the country. Traditionally a home for America’s immigrant communities, by the middle of the twentieth century, Red Hook was a predominantly Italian district.
The area has inspired many writers in addition to Arthur Miller. It is the setting for H.P. Lovecraft’s short story, The Horror at Red Hook, Budd Schulberg’s screenplay On the Waterfront and the novel Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby Jnr. RESEARCH POINT Print off a map of New York (try Google Maps or Google Earth) - find Brooklyn, then mark The Brooklyn Bridge, Red Hook and the East River.
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HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL CONTEXT
THE PLACE THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE The Brooklyn Bridge, built 125 years ago, links Brooklyn to its more up-market neighbour, Manhattan.
Brooklyn Bridge in fog: photo: Your Guide (CC)
It was here that Miller first noticed the graffiti “Dove Pete Panto?” where is Pete Panto - and began his journey of discovery into the world of Italian American longshoremen and their lives and deaths in the cut throat world of the waterfront.
The neo-gothic towers and steel wires of the bridge have inspired many writers including American poets Walt Whitman, Hart Crane, and Marianne Moore and the beat writer, Jack Kerouac, who wrote in his poem “Brooklyn Bridge Blues:”
I would I were a wave and had vanished now than bawl and blot with pencils in screaming rooms here on earth so fool stupid blind POINT FOR DISCUSSION What does The Bridge represent in A View From the Bridge? Draw a bridge and place opposing ideas on each side: eg: Italy - America, old ways - new ways... What other opposing ideas does Miller explore in the play?
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HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL CONTEXT
THE PEOPLE
WORKING ON THE WATERFRONT The job of a longshoreman was to carry the goods which were unloaded on the docks. It was hard physical labour. A checker was there to check the items on and off the boats. Red Hook was a good place for jobs in the late forties and early fifties. Often a father helped his son get a job and family connections were important. Many workers were only hired by the day, If there was no work they The Piers at Red Hook had to go home again. photo: U.S. Library of Congress The piers (docks) in Brooklyn were mainly worked by Italian Americans. Other piers in Manhattan or Staten Island were dominated by workers of Irish heritage. Ultimately it was the Unions who had the power over who was or wasn’t hired. There was widespread corruption in the Unions, also known as syndicates, and they had connections to organised crime.
HOME AND COMMUNITY
A New York tenement block 1940s photo: U.S. Library of Congress Education Resource Pack
In Red Hook, most families lived in crowded tenement buildings with two families on each floor. Until the late 1950s, the toilet might still be outside in the yard, shared by all the families in the block. There was no central heating, just a stove in the kitchen and a tub next to the sink for bathing. When relatives, like Marco and Rodolpho, arrived they had to be given a place to stay. It would be considered dishonourable to turn away a family member. Everyone in small local shops and lived close to extended family and other families who originated in the same part of Italy. Mousetrap Theatre Projects 2009
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HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL CONTEXT
THE PEOPLE
FAMILY AND MARRIAGE Older people in the community, particularly parents, were to be respected, although by the 1950s things were changing. Second and third generation Italian Americans wanted more freedom and were moving towards the mainstream of American culture.
Marriages still had to be approved by the family, particularly the father and it was normal practice to ask the father for his daughter’s hand in marriage. `
Young women were very restricted in their freedom and they knew that neighbours or relatives would report back if they were seen talking to a young man. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio in rehearsal as Beatrice
Women rarely worked outside the home. The job of a stenographer, a kind of typist, was one of the earliest respectable jobs open to young single women in this community. The 1950s was a period of huge upheaval between the generations in America and the immigrant communities, whose traditions were deeply felt, experienced a radical challenge to their belief systems. POINTS FOR DISCUSSION How do Beatrice and Catherine represent the different roles of women in the 1950s? Can you find lines from the text which support your point of view? Hayley Atwell as Catherine Education Resource Pack
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HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL CONTEXT
COMING TO AMERICA
ITALY From 1870 to 1914 there was a wave of immigration from Southern Italy to America. It is likely that Eddie’s family came at that time, along with between eight and ten million others. Outside the cities, Italy was an agrarian economy was run by the nobility along feudal lines. People were indentured to the owner of the land they lived on. They couldn’t own their own property and if they wanted anything they had to go through the “padrone” - the boss who owned all the property. The opportunity to own property in America was of huge importance to these immigrants. They were farmers, labourers and artisans such as stone masons. They came to build the new country and to escape from the poverty and servitude of the old. Immigration continued between the two World Wars and then began again in the 1950s. Italy was punished financially for being allied to Hitler’s Germany and suffered terrible poverty, while in contrast, America was experiencing a boom.
LEGAL AND ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS Legal immigrants who had the correct papers came off the boat at Ellis Island. It was an advantage if they had relatives to collect them who could vouch for them. They had come for good and wanted to get American citizenship. Illegal immigrants, like Marco, often intended to stay for a only a short time, in order to send money home to relieve the poverty of their families back in Italy. Often their passage was arranged by the very Immigrants from Europe syndicates who would ensure they being processed at Ellis Island were employed. The corrupt union ofphoto: U.S. Library of Congress ficials, who wanted to see a return on their investment, would see to it that these men got work until their debt was paid. Even to this day, Italian Americans can tell you the exact town or village their family came from and many immigrants settled in neighbourhoods with their own people from back home. Education Resource Pack
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HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL CONTEXT CODES OF HONOUR Behaviour in the community was ruled by unwritten rules and customs. Respect for the family and obedience to one’s parents was followed by loyalty to the wider family, one’s village and then the wider Italian community in the area. There was little respect for an external legal system, which barely functioned in Southern Italy and Sicily in particular. Communities created their own codes. They came to America, to a legal system they didn’t understand, so they largely ignored it. Young people rarely stepped out of line because their was order and structure, but for anyone who violated those codes, the punishment was severe and it was a matter of honour to settle a score with another person.
...in Sicily, where their fathers came from, the law has not been a friendly idea since the Greeks were beaten Alfierii
RATTING OUT Ratting out, or reporting someone to the police, was considered a mortal sin, the worst crime that could be committed in that community. Eddie’s wife’s relatives are Sicilian. They operate within the strict codes of honour handed to them by the feudal society they have grown up with. Even Alfieri, a modern lawyer, tires to warn Eddie not to go against the codes of his own culture. POINT FOR RESEARCH In pairs, go through the text and write out all the lines which refer to honour or the law. When does Eddie contradict himself? Discuss: what is the playwright trying to say about the law? IDEA FOR DRAMA Create a scene where Marco is in court, how will he defend himself against the modern American legal system?
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LEARNING RESOURCES TEXT-BYTES - a handy selection of lines from the play Quote them in essays, use them as a stimulus for drama or creative writing. Test your knowledge of the show: can you identify when these line were said? Can you re-create the stage picture of that moment?
Beatrice: When am I going to be a wife again Eddie?
Afieri: His eyes were like tunnels; my first thought was that he had committed a crime...but soon I saw it was only a passion that had moved into his body like a stranger. Marco: In my country he would be dead by now. He would not live this long. Alfieri: And now we are quite civilised, quite American. Now we settle for half, and I like it better. I no longer keep a pistol in my filing cabinet. Eddie: ...Captain gets a piece, maybe one of the mates, piece for the guy in Italy who fixed the papers for them, Tony here’ll get a little bite... Beatrice: I just hope they get work here, that’s all I hope. Eddie: Oh, the syndicate’ll fix jobs for them; till they pay ‘em off they’ll get ‘em work every day. It’s after the pay-off, then they’ll have to scrabble like the rest of us.
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Eddie: ...I guess I never figured on one thing. Catherine: What? Eddie: That you would ever grow up.
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LEARNING RESOURCES A ROUGH GUIDE TO GREEK TRAGEDY A View From The Bridge is often described as a modern, classical tragedy, but what were the features of classical Greek Tragedy? This brief guide will give you the basics... Aristotle laid down some of the rules in his work The Poetics, written in the fourth century B.C. “Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude.”
The conclusion of the plot will involve a reversal of a situation, a change from ignorance to knowledge. There will also be a moment of pathos, a moment of passion which may result from the inner workings of the play. He went on to say that the tragic hero should be a ruler or leader and should have a fatal flaw, something in his personality which ultimately causes his downfall. In a modern tragedy, the hero may not be a king, but Eddie is certainly the ruler of his family. His fatal flaw is his unconscious incestuous desire for his niece, Catherine. He does not see the signs, or heed the advice from those around him. The chorus in classical Greek drama is a group of actors speaking together, representing characters such as citizens within the story. Their role is to comment on the action and the behaviour of the characters. In A View From the Bridge Alfieri takes the role of the chorus, commenting in direct address to the audience. But he is also a character within Eddie’s story, someone he comes to for advice. In this way he is also like the oracles of classical literature. Characters who ignore the oracle or who ignore prophesy are also doomed. Catharsis was the process, described by Aristotle, that is undergone by the audience watching tragedy. As they empathise with the fate of the tragic hero they feel fear and pity and feel purged by shedding tears on his behalf. Education Resource Pack
Mousetrap Theatre Projects 2009
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ARTHUR MILLER’S A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE
LEARNING RESOURCES Working From Themes 1. Drama Exercise This exercise can be used to explore the themes of the play before students see it, with or without prior knowledge of the text. If they have knowledge of the text they can explore a moment from the play, if they are new to the text they can explore ideas within their own experience. This will help them to make connections when they see the play. Enlarge the cards and make multiple copies before cutting out. In small groups, ask students to pick one theme card per group. Students create a freeze frame which demonstrates this theme. In turn they show these and the class analyses what they can see, what shapes are being created, what emotions are shown by facial expression and body language, how meaning is being created.
2. Writing: Exploring the Text Using the theme cards, ask each student to choose a card, then find a matching quotation from the playtext. Invite them to create their own essay question based on the theme and the quotation.
Bridge
Love
Taboo
Generation Clash
Work
Women’s roles
Immigration
Masculinity
Honour
Family
Marriage
Growing Up
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ARTHUR MILLER’S A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE
LEARNING RESOURCES Status Exercises In A View From the Bridge Eddie’s status is challenged by the arrival of the Italian cousins. These exercises help students to understand the concept of status on stage, they are suggested for use before seeing the play. “Status is a confusing term unless it’s understood as something someone does. You may be low in social status, but play quite high, and vice versa… Audiences enjoy a contrast between the status played and the social status.”
Keith Johnstone (1981) 1. Cards Shuffle a pack of playing cards and give one card to each member of the group. Ask the group to line up in order of the value of their card from king down to ace, they must not say what is on the card, but rather, act out the social status of that card’s value. When they have negotiated their position in the line, ask them to reveal their card. Evaluate with the group how well they were able to express, physically or verbally, the aspects of their character’s status. Re-shuffle the cards. Ask the group to remain the same social status but they must now take on the ‘playing’ status of their new card value. Ask them to re-negotiate their position in the line, observing closely what improvised conversations take place. Pairs develop the conversations from this encounter into small scenes. 2. See-Saw Create an imaginary scenario for two players: e.g. shop assistant and customer in a shoe shop returning a pair of shoes for a refund. Ask for three volunteers: A, B and C. C stands where the other two can clearly see him and hold his arms out on either side. When he raises or lowers his left arm, A must raise or lower her status accordingly and when he raise or lowers his right arm B must raise or lower her status. Initially the arms should raise and lower in opposition during the improvised scene, but it can be interesting to see what happens if both players are high status or both are low status. Repeat with different players, locations and scenarios. When you watch the play, look for moments when the status between the characters changes and how that creates moments of tension.
Education Resource Pack
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ARTHUR MILLER’S A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE
LEARNING RESOURCES Follow up exercises after seeing the play 1. Back Story: speaking or writing exercise Miller has based the play on a story he heard, he then researched more to create a “backstory” for his characters. Choose Eddie or Beatrice at the opening of the play. Imagine they are looking back over their life up to this point. Use resources in this pack to research as much as possible about their lives and then look closely at the text of the play: what do the characters say about themselves, what do other people say about them? Improvise or write a monologue about their thoughts at this point. Extension: do this exercise again, but from where the characters are at the end of Act One. Compare the difference between the two monologues.
2. Between the Scenes: Acting Exercise Rodolpho and Catherine spend time alone together away from the house, but we only see them once in the house without the other characters present. Create a scene where Catherine and Rodolpho go out. Use the text as your source to decide what they talk about. What other events are talked about in the play but not seen? Each group could choose a different episode and re-create it as it described in the text.
3. Men at Work: Acting Exercise Create a physical scene, without language, showing the hard and heavy work on the docks. Now show what happens when Rodolpho and Marco come to join the men. At what point do they notice Rodolpho? What is the effect of him singing and dancing. Freeze the scene. Each character should speak their thoughts in the freeze frame. Explore how the men respond in different ways to RodoIpho. Further discussion can be had on the theme of the ’outsider’ as a plot feature and comparison with other texts. Note for teachers: Eddie’s attitude towards Rodolpho, and your students’ discussion of it, may raise questions and comments about homosexuality. At the end of the pack are some useful resources to help with these discussions.
Education Resource Pack
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LEARNING RESOURCES Writing a Review
What do you see and hear on the stage and in the audience, when you are waiting for the play to begin? Watch carefully during the play, and write notes at the interval, or after the play. We would ask that you do not write notes during the performance. To work out what effects are being created in the production, ask yourself these practical questions: THE SET • what is your first impression of what you see? Think about colour, texture, size of objects and how they fill the space. • who is the woman on the advertisement visible on the wall and why has this image been chosen? • how is the interior revealed? COSTUME • what colours, styles and historical details are being used? • how do the actors use costume to enhance their characters? LIGHTING • how does the lighting show what time of day it is? • how does it change for interior (inside) or exterior (outside) scenes? • what colours and shades of colour are being used? • what levels of brightness are being used and why? • think about angles of light, who is well lit and who is in shadow? • when do the lights change? • how do the lights help create the atmosphere and emphasize the emotions being played out on the stage? THE PERFORMERS • how has each actor used voice, movement and gesture to create their character? • how do the actors use the set? • how do the actors create tension in the telling of the story? • how do the actors relate to each other and to the audience? • what is the effect of having Alfieri speak directly to the audience? AND LASTLY BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY • what does the play make you think, feel, want to talk about? • if you had read the play before, what was the effect of seeing it live on stage?
Education Resource Pack
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FURTHER RESOURCES Brater, Enoch ARTHUR MILLER’S AMERICA (University of Michigan Press)
Bigsby, Christopher (ed) THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO ARTHUR MILLER (Cambridge University Press)
Bigsby, Christopher ARTHUR MILLER - A CRITICAL STUDY (Cambridge University Press)
Martin and Centola THE THEATER ESSAYS OF ARTHUR MILLER (De Capo Press, New York)
Miller, Arthur TIMEBENDS, A LIFE (Penguin)
Opera - A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE - composer William Bolcom, libretto by Arthur Miller and Arnold Weinstein (arrangements for voice, piano and guitar available from various publishers)
Film - A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE (DVD) 1961 directed by Sidney Lumet
Websites www.getintotheatre.org Arts Council England - information about careers in theatre
www.mousetrap.org.uk Mousetrap Theatre Projects - for more information see back page Resources including printable worksheets to guide discussions about Homosexuality in the Secondary School as well as detailed information on the law. http://www.avert.org/pdfs/homosexualityinschool.pdf http://www.stonewall.org.uk Education Resource Pack
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ARTHUR MILLER’S A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE
Mousetrap Theatre Projects offers young people with limited resources and access, the opportunity to engage with the best of London’s live theatre. We are an independent charity, working with theatres in the West End and across London. Since 1997, we have taken nearly 60,000 young people to the theatre. We create innovative and exciting theatre access, education and audience development programmes. Young people take part with their school or youth group, their family or their friends. Mission Statement We believe that all young people should have the opportunity to attend outstanding theatre, irrespective of their cultural, social or economic background. Our mission is to increase young people’s access to the best of live theatre in London (particularly those young people with limited resources, opportunities or support) and to enable them to engage creatively with that experience. As an independent charity, Mousetrap Theatre Projects is in a unique position to select the appropriate or relevant theatre productions in and beyond the West End that stimulate and inspire young people. We devise programmes that use theatre as a catalyst to explore ideas, learn new skills, develop creativity and offer new perspectives. At the heart of our education and outreach work is the desire to open doors to young people who might otherwise consider London’s rich cultural heritage closed to them. Areas of Endeavour Access:
To provide young people with limited resources, support or a disability, the opportunity to attend London theatre, often as a first-time experience: The London Theatre Challenge for mainstream and special schools, All- Schools Matinees, Family First Nights and Envision
Education:
To enable young people to engage actively with their theatre experience and to use theatre as an educational resource in and out of the classroom to stimulate creative work and to develop theatre-related skills: TheatreWorks, Play the Critic, Insight sessions, WriteThinking, TechTaster, PowerPlay and Stage Business
Audience Development:
To encourage a legacy of theatregoing among young audiences by reducing barriers and enhancing their knowledge and understanding of theatre: C145 and West End for £10
Creating Links:
To develop collaborations with young people, schools, teachers, artists, arts organisations, youth groups, community organisations and social service agencies with the theatre industry: Meet the Artists Events, Special Seminars/Round Table Discussions, Teachers’ Advisory Group, Teachers Preview Club and StageXChange Mousetrap Theatre Projects Bedford Chambers The Piazza Covent Garden London WC2E 8HA www.mousetrap.org.uk Tel. 020 7836 4388
Education Resource Pack
Mousetrap Theatre Projects 2009