Arthur Miller’s “Bridge Panorama”

Collaborators in the cultural section of Proceso published their critical columns (art, music, theatre, cinema, books) in these pages every week, and the section’s version became a monthly publication.

Mexico City (apro) – Arthur Miller wrote A View from the Bridge in the 50s, about illegal immigrants in the Brooklyn port, the play premiered on Broadway in 1955 but it was not a success, he later revised the text himself and made it a new proposal, now known through several productions in Latin America and the United States.

In Mexico, the latest is the one staged at the Teatro Helenico under the direction of Antonio Castro and adapted by Eduardo Mendoza. The passage of time poses great difficulties because it is contradictory to update it. Although the story is set in the fifties, it is a contradiction to try to place it in the present, because of the costumes and the way it deals with the issue of illegal immigration and its social and familial impact, using mobile phones, contemporary music and tropicalization in the language.

They seem to be speaking to us of two eras at once. It would be best to maintain the era, observing the contrast created by the passage of time, while reaffirming the universality of the problem, or radically modernizing it.

The story revolves around the dynamics of an Italian family (in this montage, Mexican) living in the New York port area, who welcome two young relatives who have crossed the border illegally. His arrival disrupts this family, composed of a married couple and an adopted niece, which already lives under the rule of Eddie, the patriarch of this triad who reproduces the servility of men in a shameful way. This imposed obligation still exists when the two young people arrive, they go into hiding and work on the docks, but the complication is that one of them falls in love with the niece and plans to marry. This provokes the anger of the patriarch, who has sexual feelings for his wife’s niece and harasses her, leading him to betray her.

The performance of “Helenico”, which ends on August 18 and will be performed in Culiacán on October 5, 6 and 7, has a high-budget venue that divides the space into the main room of the home, the office. The lawyer who tells the story, in the suburbs of the port area, is illustrated with illuminated signs, metal and brick structures.

The staging is erratic: the two young men played by Martín Peralta and Jonathan Ontiveros are weak; Stephanie Martínez is unbelievable in the role of the niece; Roberto Sosa as the protagonist maintains the same shouting and restrained manner as Rodrigo Murray as the lawyer; Monserrate Marañón tries to ground himself in the realism demanded by the work, but the direction fails to reconcile and deepen the characters and their relationships.

Panorama from the Bridges grew out of an investigation into Arthur Miller’s film The Hook, which he co-planned with Elia Kazan, about corruption and murder among longshoremen on the Brooklyn docks. According to the government, Kazan denounced Miller before the Un-American Activities Committee during the McCarthy era, when artists, intellectuals, and scholars with anti-nationalist traits were persecuted, and they turned the film script over to the FBI, and the playwright was persecuted as a result. Labelled a communist, they confiscated his passport and continued to investigate him. They invited him to denounce his colleagues, but he refused to testify, ending his friendship with Kazan.

The panoramic view from the bridge at that time was a denunciation of the living conditions of immigrants, machismo, the subjugation of dock workers, exploitation, intolerance and betrayal within the community. Although these issues transcend national borders and time and still exist in the turbulent 21st century, their expression has fundamentally changed considering today’s policies.