The view’s good from here

A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE, Royal Exchange, Manchester
ARTHUR Miller does it every time: mixes power, intensity, charm and deep emotional turmoil like few other playwrights before or since.

This drama, originally a slight failure as a one-act work, was extended and improved in a major way to close that golden period of his work that encompassed Death of a Salesman, All My Sons and The Crucible.

It is the story of New York dock worker Eddie, whose love for his niece turns to obsession and jealousy as she falls for a boy half his age.

Not that Miller was crass enough to make this a melodrama about sexual inappropriateness: there is tremendous subtlety here, giving enough scope — at first, at least — to view Eddie as an ordinary guy lovingly trying to guide the orphaned Catherine into adulthood in a tough neighbourhood.

But the catalyst in his downfall is a selfless act: taking in two impoverished family members from Sicily, illegally in the country and keen to work, clear their debt and send money home.

Younger man Rodolpho falls for the girl, and she for him. As the girl’s affections move towards her potential husband, Eddie’s jealousy makes him do stupid things — until he commits the ultimate sin: ratting out his guests to the authorities.

The play is rich in honour, emotion and passion, and this production by Sarah Frankcom plays also on its comic strengths, evident in the first act.

At times in fact there is perhaps a little too much playing for laughs, though this does throw the deep turmoil of the second half into sharp relief.

What Frankcom’s production does very well is the surface appearance of happy families, aided by a superb central performance by Con O’Neill in his Exchange debut.

O’Neill is an actor without great vocal power — Eddie is normally played in a rather bullish, unsubtle way — but great inner intensity, used to the full here and blended beautifully with the worried but practical wife of Anna Francolini and charming Catherine of Leila Mimmack. The whole production majors for once on the ensemble family tragedy, rather than just the downfall of its head.

With this balance — ably assisted by the immigrants of Nitzan Sharron as Marco and Ronan Raftery as Rodolpho, and the wise lawyer Alfieri of Ian Redford — this View is a particularly fine one as it winds onward to its inevitable, tragic end.