THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
By Arthur Miller
Theatre Royal Haymarket, London SW1Y 4HT, until August 3, 2024
This transfer from Theatre Royal Bath, which is on a recent artistic high, is the kind of solid star-led revival that the West End and particularly the Theatre Royal Haymarket used to be known for. Lindsay Posner's realistic production is old fashioned, but in a great way. It's a complete contrast to the last West End staging of this play with a barefoot Mark Strong who was literally in the mud in the highly stylized and very personalized vision of star director Ivo van Hove. This production is a great introduction to the play and to Miller's work in general as it is unimpeded by such directorial flourishes.
The key to its success is Dominic West (star of The Wire, The Crown, The Affair) who brings not just a burly physicality to the epic part of Eddie Carbone but crucially also a rumpled charm and level of self-awareness which makes us warm to his humanity, and his ridiculous objections to being put upon, rather than be repelled by the man who is normally presented as a bullying, patriarchal lug.
The story of Eddie's suppressed passion for his niece Catherine (Nia Towle), which leads to his downfall, is one of transference. His jealous rage and coiled self-disgust get directed outwards, with the victims being his impoverished house guests. They're a pair of illegal migrant brothers from Italy, his wife's cousins Marco (Piero Nile-Mee) and Rodolpho (Callum Scott Howells), who've snuck into the country on a cargo ship. Miller's drama is Greek in its dimensions even if Miller's preference for Ibsen-like naturalism means that we are firmly located in a realistic recreation of Brooklyn stockyards in the early '50s.
The omertà among the local Italian community to protect illegals from the old country, and how it generates an air of paranoia, is perfectly rendered here by Posner and designer Peter McKintosh, whose set of towering gray clapboard houses, looming fire escapes, and spartan furnishings adds to the claustrophobia felt by Eddie and his whole household. Here the police and the state are always outsiders. At a time when we're pondering our own migrant 'crisis' it's sobering to be reminded how these dilemmas are universal and eternal.
The play is showing its age, the exposition creaks, it repeats itself, and the pacing is too slow for modern audiences, but it encapsulates Miller's genius at giving us ordinary heroes, often with fatal flaws, whose stories illuminate bigger truths.
Kate Fleetwood is perfectly careworn and edgy as Eddie's wife Beatrice who tries to keep the peace, while Nia Towle makes an astonishingly assured Catherine, illustrating what a great role this is – she's the moral center of the play. The scene in which Beatrice warns her to be more circumspect about covering herself up in front of Eddie speaks volumes for the plight of women then, when it was 'always their fault'.
Catherine's blossoming romance with the blond Rodolpho is beautifully felt. Howells perfectly captures the wide-eyed optimism of the talented young immigrant. During a brawl Eddie violently kisses him on the mouth in order to humiliate him. It is astonishing to think what that kiss meant to the British premiere (directed by Peter Brook no less) in 1956 – the show had to be staged in a technically private theater club as it could not be cleared by the censor for public consumption. Now it's a plot detail and the focus of the play is on Eddie's sexual infatuation with his orphaned niece.
