See it if If u love theather
Don't see it if If you don't like Arthur miller's work
See it if Must see live. Saw NTW film, but live is even more powerful
Don't see it if Not to be missed
See it if Superb acting, emotionally riveting production of this classic play. Minimalistic, sparse set design.
Don't see it if You want something light and fluffy.
See it if You are interested in innovative staging and great acting! If you're trying to see all of Arthur Miller's plays for his centenary!
Don't see it if You want an easy night at the theatre
See it if you're a fan of exciting, inventive new productions of classic American plays. This production is electrifying.
Don't see it if you or anyone in your party can't sit quietly for two hours. The audience needs to be able to pay attention. Be respectful or stay home.
See it if you like quality American playwriting performed with a contemporary fresh attitude and staging. Quality acting. I believed every character.
Don't see it if you fall asleep easily with drama.
See it if Powerful story with fine acting and excellent staging
Don't see it if Don't like intense solid acting wit a lot of dialogue with a very stark set
See it if you appreciate elemental, earthy acting on a bare stage, everything stripped down to the essentials, and intense emotion.
Don't see it if you are looking for a usual approach to the play, great scenery, props, furniture, etc.--this is bare bones for those who appreciate that.
"Ivo van Hove certainly has stripped the play down. However, he has added so much more. Depending on one’s tastes, one could view this as either good or bad. It has European sensibilities and none of the American aesthetics, and this play is as American as you can get...Despite directorial overindulgences, Mark Strong and Nicola Walker certainly make 'A View From The Bridge' a must-see, raw and different interpretation of an American classic."
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"What is playing over at the Lyceum Theatre just may be some of the best theatre of the decade. This is no joke...Belgian experimental Director Ivo Van Hove's minimalist production is ominous and eerily powerful...The innovative staging is reminiscent of a cage match where the actors, all barefoot by the way, engage in a brawl for two hours…This production is nothing short of pure brilliance."
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"In the production that opened last night at the Lyceum, directed by Ivo Van Hove, what proceeds isn’t merely dreamlike but in fact a nightmare, an ominous parable told in a chimerical world, in which emotions are heightened, time suspended, and dread omnipresent."
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"An intensely gripping look at what has always been the closest thing to Greek tragedy Miller ever wrote…An electrifying and unexpected dance. The tensions that roil beneath this family’s surface simmer and explode. Mark Strong is brilliant as the deluded and denial-ridden Eddie…By the time we climb to the blood-drenched emotional climax of the story, we’re almost too tired to clamber out of our seats for the much-deserved ovation. But clamber we do. And then we breathe."
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"I can't compare Ivo van Hove's vision of this drama with another, but I know good theatre when I see it...Perhaps because the production is so raw and bare, it's easy to see this as a Shakespearean tragedy, and it is easy to draw comparisons to Miller's other leading men...Van Hove has revitalized a classic."
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"If you think you've seen Arthur Miller's dark classic 'A View From the Bridge' enough times, think again. The muscular production is a stunning, imaginative theatrical experience, an impassioned interpretation that really brings the heat to Miller's gripping drama…Eventually all the actors enfold one another in a haunting, anguished tableau, a brilliant visual summation by van Hove of how people in this close-knit community must stand or fall together."
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"Ivo van Hove's sparse style works its magic on this Arthur Miller classic, stripping down the play to just its text with no props or set dressings...There are no distractions of actors playing pretend over a dinner table or seaside docks; they simply face each other and deliver their lines, which heightens each moment of tension...Mark Strong delivers a memorable turn as Eddie; the rest of the cast members more than hold their own."
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"I liked this as well as I could. Ivo von Hove is a very thoughtful director, but he’ll never be my favorite...Hove’s production of Miller’s 'A View from the Bridge', is, however, the most lucid work I’ve seen from this sometimes opaque auteur director. It’s rock-solid theater for sure, but not quite up to the mark of director Gregory Mosher’s production a few seasons back...Worth seeing, but I didn’t find it the revelation some other people felt it to be."
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