A View from the Bridge: A Play in One Act

Book excerpt: "A View From The Bridge" is a play by American playwright Arthur Miller that was first staged on September 29, 1955 as a one-act verse drama with "A Memory of Two Mondays" at the Coronet Theatre on Broadway. The play was unsuccessful and Miller subsequently revised the play to contain two acts.Einstein Books' edition of "A View From The Bridge" is the original one-act version of the play.The play is set in 1950s America, in an Italian American neighborhood near the Brooklyn Bridge in New York. It employs both a chorus and a narrator (Alfieri). Eddie, the tragic protagonist, has an improper love of, and almost obsession with, Catherine. Miller's interest in writing about the world of the New York docks originated with an unproduced screenplay that he developed with Elia Kazan in the early 1950s (entitled The Hook) that addressed corruption on the Brooklyn docks (Kazan would go on to direct On the Waterfront, which tackled the same subject). Miller said that he heard the basic account that developed into the plot of A View from the Bridge from a longshoreman, who related it to him as a true story.Einstein Books' edition of "A View From The Bridge" contains supplementary texts:* An excerpt from "A Memory Of Two Mondays", a one-act play by Arthur Miller.* An excerpt from "The Man Who Had All The Luck", and early play by Arthur Miller.* A few selected quotes of Arthur Miller.