Arena's 'View': A Revealing Look at Desire's Dark Side

In style, pacing and tone, Arena Stage's highly charged "A View From the Bridge" presents a thoroughly compelling portfolio of arguments for esteeming Arthur Miller beyond the oft-cited achievements of "The Crucible" and "Death of a Salesman."

Daniel Aukin's bracing production is anchored by excellent performances in three central roles: Virginia Kull's Catherine, David Agranov's Rodolpho and, most vitally, Delaney Williams's Eddie. The actors provide the sturdy legs of the unlikely romantic triangle that triggers a tragedy of betrayal in a blue-collar Brooklyn family of the 1950s.

As in "The Crucible," Miller's colonial allegory of McCarthyite paranoia, "A View From the Bridge" is the story of a vengeful snitch motivated by sexual jealousy, and the havoc that a tip to the authorities unleashes. Of course, Abigail, the misguided young accuser of "The Crucible," makes up her malicious allegations of witchcraft. Eddie, the longshoreman in love with his pretty 17-year-old niece, transgresses with a simple phone call, leading government agents to the illegal Italian immigrant who wants to marry her.

Eddie, though, is the more sympathetic figure, and not because Miller was any kind of advocate for shoring up our borders. Eddie's decision is legally if not ethically defensible; he is aware of the consequences of what he has done, and he is brought to account for his actions by a community that deals harshly with informers. And as Williams protectively conceives him, Eddie is poignantly primitive, a man pushed to the brink in the battle between his responsibilities and his morally repugnant desires.

Any fan of "The Wire" will recognize Williams as blustery Sgt. Landsman, whose buttons got pushed by Dominic West's oily Detective McNulty. There's a bit of the familiar barfly about him: You could imagine him taking his accustomed seat in Sam Malone's place and everyone at Cheers reflexively yelling, "Delaney!" The actor uses his affability to his advantage here without ever overplaying it. Eddie's clumsy attempts at flattering Catherine, under the suspicious gaze of his long-suffering wife, Beatrice (Naomi Jacobson, as impressively in control as ever), expertly explore in Williams's portrayal the flawed chivalry of the inarticulate.

The notion of not possessing the words is expressed vocally, too, in the rage that comes out of Williams's Eddie in choked-off spasms. Williams does not get exactly right the accent of a Brooklyn dockworker -- a strong trace of Maryland or thereabouts remains apparent -- but everything else, he does.

With an engaging dexterity, "A View From the Bridge" juggles our feelings about Eddie's assimilated Italian American family and the two young Italian brothers (Agranov and a splendid Louis Cancelmi), relatives of Beatrice's who sneak into the country to live with them. (The orphaned Catherine has been taken in by them as well.) Less dexterously, the play employs a narrator, a lawyer from the neighborhood (Noble Shropshire) who comments rather superfluously on the rising tensions.

Nevertheless, director Aukin calibrates each twist of the story as a cold step closer to catastrophe. He's helped greatly by the casting and the ability of the actors to mine this material for its period flavors and its emotional truthfulness. Kull, in particular, makes an earthily convincing impact. Her Catherine is a young woman of raw outer-borough feistiness; it's a pleasure watching her create the illusion of a girl struggling to wrest herself from the strangling attentions of a needy older man.

Yet Kull manages to magnify another dimension of complicated Catherine: her guilt-driven need not to destroy a father figure's fantasies -- to retain Eddie's good opinion of her. What's both fascinating and creepy about this is that Catherine has to be a betrayer herself, must be complicit in some way in the incestuous flirtation that keeps Eddie on the hook and Beatrice in turmoil.

Rodolpho, Catherine's lover, might be something of a fantasy himself; he is the fairer-haired of Miller's physically divergent brothers, an idealized sort of figure of artistic sensitivity and poetic refinement (and thus the antagonistic opposite of lump-of-clay Eddie). Agranov, however, carries him with masculine bearing and infuses him with a natural air of good-heartedness. Although you feel for Eddie's lack of full comprehension, you root for Rodolpho.

The production uses a modified version of the set -- designed by Loy Arcenas for Arena's temporary home in Crystal City -- that is employed in the companion staging of "Death of a Salesman." Perhaps because "View" is the more naturalistic piece, with none of the flashback machinations of "Salesman," the set has adapted more agreeably to the bare-bones space.

Or maybe it's simply that when things are going well, everything seems to be conspiring in the affirmative. Aukin's "View" offers all these fine performances and a pulse-quickening climax to boot. Your appreciation for Miller's unvarnished power gets, on this well-made evening, a swift and energizing kick.

A View From the Bridge, by Arthur Miller. Directed by Daniel Aukin. Costumes, Laurie Churba Kohn; lighting, Nancy Schertler; composer, Michael G. Keck; fight choreographer, David S. Leong; dialect consultant, Robert Barry Fleming. About 2 1/2 hours. In rotating repertory through May 18 at Arena Stage, 1800 S. Bell St., Arlington. Call 202-488-3300 or visit http://www.arenastage.org.