Ponte magnifico!

A couple of years back, Arthur Miller was voted best playwright of the 20th century in the English language. If one needed any reassurance of this truth, the current West End production of View from the Bridge offers it by the pantechicon load. This dark story of betrayal driven by incestual love grinds the gravel into all the senses. The ear, the nose, the taste, the eye, along with the soul, are all assailed by deep, disturbing conflict which draws the onlooker completely, frighteningly not only into the story but into the struggling despair of poor, fifties, immigrant New York. The play haunts one into the night and will probably be there in the moring, too. A perfectly hewn play, not in stone but made of deeply suffering, painful minds and bodies. A perfect play? Yes, probably, inasmuch as we are able to comprehend perfection.

There's more to astound in Lindsay Posner's deeply textured, glooming production, not least one of the greatest performances you'll ever see, from Ken Stott as Eddie Carbone. It's a towering, profoundly disturbing performance. Stott even appears to put on weight as Eddie's troubled mind draws him further into drink, treachery and violence, wheezing, staggering, eyes red as he increasingly can only see the coming moment when the object of his love will finally be taken beyond his grasp.

The production will finish next Saturday May 16th. Do whatever you must to get a ticket -- sell anything and everything, body, soul, the lot, -- but go! Check TKTS in Leicester Square (and now at Brent Cross) for half price best seats, because surprisingly that's how I got in. But if TKTS can't help, this magnificent production of a very great play is worth the full price and more. It's at the Duke of York's Theatre in St Martin's Lane.