Arthur Miller Play To Be Staged On Red Hook Barge

RED HOOK, BROOKLYN — A classic Arthur Miller tragedy about a Red Hook longshoreman comes home to the East River in a new production on a barge starting this week.

The Brave New World Repertory Theatre latest production will take Miller's "A View From The Bridge" and stage it onboard the Waterfront Barge Museum, on Red Hook's waterfront at 290 Conover St., with an opening on Friday, the company announced.

The tragedy follows longshoreman Eddie Carbon who lives in Red Hook and has an obsession with his orphaned niece Catherine. Trouble starts when his wife's undocumented family comes from Italy to work on Brooklyn's dock and her cousin Rodolpho court Catherine.

Claire Beckman, the co-founder of the theatre company, said that despite the play premiering more than 60-years-old, it's themes and Carbon remain relevant in the current political climate.

"Eddie Carbone is a flawed Everyman like most of Miller's leading men, but he is also xenophobic, homophobic, patriarchal, white and working class," Beckman said in a statement.

"He does his fair share of 'mansplaining,' while he struggles with inappropriate feelings for his 17-year-old niece. He checks every box for the tragically flawed American male in 2018."

The theatre company — which previously stages Miller's "The Crucible" in 2010 and "The American Clock" in 2011 — waited for nearly a decade to get the rights to produce on "A View From The Bridge" in the borough it set in.

The production will be directed by Alex Dmitriev and performed in a small space in the floating museum, which he said will drive the tragedy home to the audience. It will star Beckman, Jabari Brown, Jacob Daddy, Joe Gioco and more.

"A View From A Bridge" will have a preview on Thursday then open on Friday. It will run Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. until June 24.

Image: Brave New World Repertory Theatre