Arthur Miller’s 1955 drama is unmatched
on the extremes to which we can go in order to rationalise our
feelings, and the anguished knots in which we can tie ourselves if
pressed to articulate or even to consciously recognise those feelings.
Brooklyn longshoreman Eddie Carbone is outraged when told that he is
overly possessive of his teenage niece Catherine, and can barely even
comprehend that there may be a sexual element to it; still less that
her involvement with his Sicilian illegal-immigrant lodger Rodolpho
might have given rise in him to jealousy not just of Catherine, but
also of Rodolpho. He could not conceive of such complications, such
deformities, in himself. But we see them in his Puritanism towards
Catherine’s social life, in the excuse he finds to punch Rodolpho under
cover of teaching him boxing, in the way he sits glowering, twisting
the newspaper in his hands in Ken Stott’s performance here, and
ultimately in the betrayal which alienates him from his family and
community.
Stott is excellent at this aspect of Eddie. His voice shifts from a
wheedle to a rasp to a buzzsaw, he speaks volumes with a look, and is
consummate at the physical torment as he tries both to see and to avoid
seeing the unbearable truth. This is the territory of Miller’s first
half, and Lindsay Posner’s production teems with unspoken unquiet. The
second half works less well, partly due to Miller’s more overt writing,
but also to a shortfall in physicality. Stott does not convey a sense
that if and when he goes amok he could do untold damage. This is not an
Eddie who could cow his wife Beatrice as she has been cowed. Mary
Elizabeth Mastrantonio’s Beatrice is grown haggard and resigned in the
service of her family, but has not subsided entirely: Mastrantonio’s
silent acting is masterly in the minute or so
before Beatrice gives voice to her
realisation that Eddie has ratted on his own relations to the
immigration authorities.
Hayley Attwell’s Catherine is an appealing combination of feistiness
and devotion; as Rodolpho, Harry Lloyd has the requisite easy, winning
manner but lacks the magnetism to make him a sexual threat. Nor do
Posner and designer Christopher Oram locate the Carbones within a
palpable community with common values and attitudes. After that
first-rate first act, the atmosphere dissipates just as it should be
thickening.
Written for the Financial
Times.