A View from the Bridge

41st Season • 400th Production SEGERSTROM STAGE / MAY 17 - JUNE 26, 2005 David Emmes Martin Benson PRODUCING ARTISTIC DIRECTOR ARTISTIC DIRECTOR presents A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE BY Arthur Miller SCENIC DESIGN COSTUME DESIGN LIGHTING DESIGN COMPOSER/SOUND DESIGN Ralph Funicello Angela Balogh Calin Chris Parry Karl Fredrik Lundeberg FIGHT CHOREOGRAPHER ASSISTANT DIRECTOR PRODUCTION MANAGER STAGE MANAGER Ken Merckx Sharyn Case Jeff Gifford *Jamie A. Tucker DIRECTED BY Martin Benson HONORARY PRODUCERS CORPORATE PRODUCER Barbara and William Roberts American Airlines Presented by special arrangement with Samuel French, Inc. A View from the Bridge • SOUTH COAST REPERTORY P1 CAST OF CHARACTERS (In order of appearance) Alfieri ....................................................................................... Hal Landon Jr.* Eddie ........................................................................................ Richard Doyle* Louis .............................................................................................. Sal Viscuso* Mike ............................................................................................ Mark Brown* Catherine .................................................................................... Daisy Eagan* Beatrice ................................................................................ Elizabeth Ruscio* Marco .................................................................................... Anthony Cistaro* Rodolpho ........................................................................... David Barry Gray* Tony/Mr. Lipari/Ensemble ............................................... Jay Michael Fraley* 1st Immigration Officer ..................................................... Preston Maybank* 2nd Immigration Officer ...................................................... Darin Singleton* Mrs. Lipari ........................................................................ Martha McFarland* Ensemble ................................................................. M.S. Cliff E. Threadgold** Ensemble .............................................................................. Samer T. Marei** SETTING The Red Hook area of Brooklyn, post World War II. LENGTH Approximately two hours, including one 15-minute intermission. PRODUCTION STAFF Assistant Stage Manager ........................................................ Erin Nelson* Casting .............................................................................. Joanne DeNaut Stage Management Intern ................................................ Mia D. Osherow Movement Consultant ......................................................... Sylvia Turner Assistant Lighting Designer ...................................... Christian DeAngelis Costume Design Assistant ........................................................ Julie Keen Additional Costume Staff .... Tracy Gray, Amber Johnson, Stacey Nezda, Mai Nguyen, Peg Oquist, Swantje Tuohino Please refrain from unwrapping candy or making other noises that may disturb surrounding patrons. The use of cameras and recorders in the theatre is prohibited. Smoking is not permitted anywhere in the theatre. Cellular phones, beepers and watch alarms should be turned off or set to non-audible mode during the performance. * Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers. Official Airline Media Partner P2 SOUTH COAST REPERTORY • A View from the Bridge Tragedy and the Common Man n this age few tragedies are written. It has often hero himself, the tale always reveals what has been been held that the lack is due to a paucity of called his “tragic flaw,” a failing that is not peculiar to heroes among us, or else that modern man has had grand or elevated characters. Nor is it necessarily a Ithe blood drawn out of his organs of belief by the weakness. The flaw, or crack in the character, is re- skepticism of science, and the heroic attack on life ally nothing—and need be nothing—but his inherent cannot feed on an attitude of reserve and circumspec- unwillingness to remain passive in the face of what tion. For one reason or he conceives to be a chal- another, we are often held lenge to his dignity, his to be below tragedy—or image of his rightful sta- tragedy above us. The in- tus. Only the passive, evitable conclusion is, of only those who accept course, that the tragic their lot without active re- mode is archaic, fit only taliation, are “flawless.” for the very highly placed, Most of us are in that cate- the kings or the kingly, gory. and where this admission But there are among is not made in so many us today, as there always words it is most often im- have been, those who act plied. against the scheme of I believe that the things that degrades them, common man is as apt a and in the process of ac- subject for tragedy in its tion everything we have highest sense as kings accepted out of fear or in- were. […] If the exaltation sensitivity or ignorance is of tragic action were truly shaken before us and ex- a property of the high- amined, and from this bred character alone, it is total onslaught by an indi- inconceivable that the vidual against the seem- mass of mankind should ingly stable cosmos sur- cherish tragedy above all rounding us—from this other forms, let alone be total examination of the capable of understanding “unchangeable” environ- it. ment—comes the terror As a general rule, to and the fear that is classi- which there may be ex- cally associated with ceptions unknown to me, I tragedy. think the tragic feeling is evoked in us when we are More important, from this total questioning of in the presence of a character who is ready to lay what has previously been unquestioned, we learn. down his life, if need be, to secure one thing—his And such a process is not beyond the common man. sense of personal dignity. […] Sometimes he is one […] It is time, I think, that we who are without kings who has been displaced from it, sometimes one who took up this bright thread of our history and followed seeks to attain it for the first time, but the fateful it to the only place it can possibly lead in our time— wound from which the inevitable events spiral is the the heart and spirit of the average man. wound of indignity, and its dominant force is indig- nation. Tragedy, then, is the consequence of a man’s Excerpted from Miller’s essay, which first appeared in the total compulsion to evaluate himself justly. The New York Times in February 1949 and is reprinted in The Theater Essays of Arthur Miller, edited and with an In- In the sense of having been initiated by the troduction by Robert A. Martin (New York: Viking, 1978). A View from the Bridge •SOUTH COAST REPERTORY P3 From Sicily to South Brooklyn: The Immigrant Odyssey t was an Italian who began the story of immigration poverty. The peasants in the primarily poor, mostly to America. When Christopher Columbus set foot rural south of Italy and on the island of Sicily had lit- on American soil in 1492, he launched a flood of tle hope of improving their lot. Diseases and natural Imigration that is still in motion, and that trans- disasters swept through the new nation but its fledg- formed the continent completely. ing government was Although Italy as a unified nation in no condition to did not exist until 1861, the Italian bring aid to the peo- peninsula has sent millions of its ple. As transoceanic people to the shores of North Amer- travel became more ica. These new arrivals thought of affordable, and as themselves as Neopolitans, Sicilians, word of American Calabrians, or Syracuseans. They prosperity came via might not have understood each returning immi- others’ dialects, but upon arrival in grants and U.S. re- the United States they became Ital- cruiters, Italians ian Americans. By the turn of the found it increasingly 20th century, they would be ready difficult to resist the to change the continent once more. call of “L’America.” Most of this generation of Ital- This new gen- ian immigrants tooks their first steps eration of Italian im- on U.S. soil in a place that has now migrants was dis- become a legend—Ellis Island. In tinctly different in the 1880s, they num- makeup from those bered 300,000; in that had come be- the 1890s, 600,000; fore. No longer did in the decade after the immigrant popu- that, more than lation consist mostly two million. By of Northern Italian 1920, when immi- artisans and shop- gration began to keepers seeking new markets in which to ply their taper off, over four million Ital- trades. Instead the vast majority were farmers, fisher- ians had come to the United men and laborers looking for a steady source of States, representing more than 10% work—any work. There were significant numbers of of the nation’s foreign-born popula- single men among these immigrants, many of tion. whom came only to stay a short time. With- What brought about this dramatic in five years, between 30-50% of this surge in immigration? The causes are complex generation of immigrants would re- and each hopeful individual or family no doubt had turn to Italy. a unique story. By the late 19th century, the peninsu- The Italian immigrants who la of Italy had finally been brought under one flag, passed the test of Ellis Island went but the land and the people were by no means uni- about transforming the city they found fied. Decades of internal strife had left a legacy of vi- before them. Many previous immigrant olence, social chaos, and widespread groups, such as those from Germany and P4 SOUTH

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