A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE The Young Vic, London SE1

Arthur Miller’s great play, which premiered in 1956, is in the tragic Greek classical mould, even to a Chorus; but the drama is firmly rooted in a 20th century American immigrant working class reality. Belgian director Ivo van Hove’s production gets rid of all the domestic and social trappings Miller deliberately put into the play and acts it without interval on a bare thrust stage as if it were a Greek tragedy. There are no props. The production, stark and brutal, is fiercely acted by Mark Strong as the longshoreman and Phoebe Fox as the niece he lusts after; but it does not have the emotional impact Alan Ayckbourn’s production with Michael Gambon had; nor does it have the emotional impact Lindsay Posner’s production with Ken Stott had. The artificiality and stylization are an interesting experiment for those who know the play well, but they get in the way.