Director Lindsay Posner finds something primal and truly disturbing in Arthur Miller’s play
The day’s rehearsal is about to commence. The actors sit or stand around chatting, telling anecdotes, prevaricating, pouring one last cup of coffee — anything to avoid the moment when they have to begin committing emotionally and psychologically to Arthur Miller’s text. Why, I ask myself, is A View from the Bridge proving so difficult to rehearse? This is not due to laziness on the part of the company, but an awareness that the play’s action unfolds as relentlessly and remorselessly as any Greek tragedy; demanding intensities of emotional and psychological expression which crash through conventional barriers and resonate in the world of myth. To have rehearsed Miller’s text and mined its complexities means to have come into contact with something primal and truly disturbing. Thank God for tea-breaks!
I reassure the actors that our imminent run-throughs and indeed performances in the theatre will be liberating and less draining than rehearsals.
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