Community Ensemble to feature in co-production of A View from the Bridge

Arthur Miller’s powerful, moving and timeless drama A View from the Bridge is being revived this autumn in a York Theatre Royal and Royal & Derngate Northampton co-production that will feature a local Community Ensemble at both venues.

York Theatre Royal Associate Director Juliet Forster directs the production, which is at York Theatre Royal from 20 September to 12 October, then Royal & Derngate Northampton as part of the Made in Northampton 2019 season.

Set in the shadows of Brooklyn Bridge in 1950s New York, this classic of our time tells the story of respected longshoreman Eddie Carbone who lives a life of seeming stability with his wife and niece in a tight knit, immigrant community bound by moral codes of justice and honour. The surprise arrival of his Sicilian cousins unravels all that they have built together.

Juliet Forster says: “Arthur Miller says you can’t really understand Eddie Carbone outside of his community, so inevitably I wanted to create a large living, breathing, feeling community on stage around him, drawing on the remarkable skills of our local community actors.

“I am really looking forward to exploring the questions raised in the play around trust in a community, betrayal, social taboos and attitudes to the law with two different casts – one in York and one in Northampton – and how this might impact on the production.

She adds: “This gripping drama is compulsive viewing – it simmers with tension and explodes with passion. It feels more relevant today than it has ever been, in its examination of the power of desire, models of masculinity, and in attitudes to immigration, which once again have become a hugely contentious political issue in current times.”

Juliet’s recent productions include Sense and Sensibility (York Theatre Royal, Theatre By the Lake), and A Midsummer’s Night Dream (Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre, York).

Full casting and further creatives to be announced later in the year.

Tom Bird, Executive Director, York Theatre Royal, said: “A View From The Bridge is one of the finest plays ever written and despite being over 60 years old is a fitting story for our times. We are delighted to be making it in York and that it will then travel to our friends at Royal & Derngate in Northampton.”