Lemons are green........

Source: National Theatre Live: A View from the Bridge (2015) (imdb.com)

Bit delayed, but better late than never, I went along to my local cinema last week to catch the NT Live: Encore of the revival of Arthur Miller's A View From The Bridge, which was done originally at the Young Vic Theatre in London, before transferring to the Wyndhams in the West End. It tells the story of how 1 family's life is changed when they decide to house a pair of Italian illegal refugees in a poorer area of Brooklyn, USA.

It's a play which a lot of people perhaps know, but though I had heard of it, I had no idea what it was about; and I wasn't expecting at all what I got....
There are probably two things which made this a fantastic experience to see: one was Mark Strong's extraordinary performance as Eddie Carbone; the other being the direction by Ivo Van Hove - there were so many little moments which just made the piece electric, and by reverting it back to its original 1-Act form, rather than the 2-Act form everyone is used to, he pumped up the tension to 11 AND NEVER let it drop. It must have been a lot harder for the actors to keep up that stamina throughout with no 15-minute pause, but they did it effortlessly.

I'm going to leave it here and make this only a small one, but I would like to end by making 2 points: firstly, this particular productions I can say that the production for me definitely lived up to the 3 Oliviers it received (Best Revival, Best Actor for Strong and Best Direction for Van Hove); and secondly, the production has recently enjoyed a Broadway run, with most of its UK cast with it, and has picked up a few Tony nominations - it will certainly be interesting to see now whether it can pick any up.......