The New York Times - Highly Recommended
"...This must be what Greek tragedy once felt like, when people went to the theater in search of catharsis. Ivo van Hove's magnificent reconception of Arthur Miller's "A View From the Bridge," which opened on Thursday night at the Lyceum Theater, takes you into extreme emotional territory that you seldom dare visit in daily life."
NY Daily News - Recommended
"...Strong is manly, magnetic and as persuasive as a heart attack...The stark staging by van Hove, a Broadway newcomer who's known for stripped-back takes on classics, gets straight to the meat of the story...If there's a quibble it's that Eddie's final fate may be somewhat unclear if you don't know the play. Also, constant underscoring of sacred music, ambient sounds and percussive beats leads to diminishing returns."
Associated Press - Recommended
"...Miller's 1955 play about working-class Italian-Americans in Brooklyn was most recently revived on Broadway in 2010 with Liev Schreiber and Scarlett Johansson. Now van Hove has stripped it down to a stark set that resembles a boxing ring. During nearly two tense hours without intermission, the barefoot cast members warily circle one another under bright lights, while a dissonant soundtrack increases the tension and unease."
Hollywood Reporter - Recommended
"...This is very much directorial theater, and some will no doubt reject it as an overly portentous approach to a kitchen-sink drama that already can be seen as lacking in nuance or social relevance compared to, say, Death of a Salesman. Others might be bothered by its abstract rendering of a highly specific Italo-American blue-collar milieu. And its thunderous climactic coup de theatre will certainly not be to everyone's taste. But without lessening the value of more conventional presentations, van Hove's heightened operatic treatment locates a timeless sense of the pain, fear and helplessness of Miller's characters, with the play's portrait of implacable human nature eliciting feelings of both horror and pity."
Vulture - Somewhat Recommended
"...The lack of clutter is certainly chic, but without the furniture and props Miller specified, some points are unclear...What makes this slight misfit of play and production finally unimportant is that the actors are so devastatingly good...Some of the credit for the cast's superb work obviously belongs to van Hove; he knew he needed actors who could stand up to his powerful, showy interventions. It's a fair trade; those interventions probably made this revival viable."
Variety - Highly Recommended
"...Breathe, everybody, breathe! Audiences really need to be reminded of that at the end of Ivo Van Hove's magnificent production...The show, anchored by a towering performance from Mark Strong as a longshoreman whose willful blindness causes his whole world to come crashing down, is both visually gorgeous and an emotional wipeout...Strong scales those heights, giving an electrifying performance of raw power and terrifying beauty."
USA Today - Recommended
"...Strong delivers a fearless, riveting performance...Strong also affects a more convincing Brooklyn accent than some of his fellow Brits -- among them Fox, who seems a less-than-ideal fit for Catherine in other respects...Van Hove holds us rapt throughout, even when his flourishes feel overstated. While Miller's dialogue hardly requires such added fuss, the director should be commended for offering a fresh take that sacrifices none of its sting."
New York Post - Highly Recommended
"...No stars, no props and a minimal set help us focus on the tortured relationships at the heart of this modern tragedy. The tension never dips as the show heads toward the kind of mind-blowing climax that's the stuff of Broadway legend. Admittedly, those familiar with the 1955 play's web of passion, jealousy and betrayal will get more out of this production's bracing new insights. But the show's so strong, its impact feels universal."
Newsday - Highly Recommended
"...From the first moments of director Ivo van Hove's stripped-down and downright stunning production of 'A View From the Bridge,' it is clear this will be unlike any other ...This 'View' moves with the terrifying inevitability of myth...Most of this happens on designer Jan Versweyveld's elevated plain square with an emotional honesty that makes even Miller's heavier lines seem almost improvised."
amNY - Not Recommended
"...Hove takes a scalpel-edged, stripped-down yet over-the-top approach that drains the play of its naturalistic flavor...But what really hurts the two-hour production is Hove's never-ending use of an unsettling, dirge-like soundscape, which interrupts the dialogue and is often disconnected from the storytelling...Mark Strong conveys Eddie's inner torment with a quiet intensity."
Wall Street Journal - Not Recommended
"...Mr. Van Hove...doesn't seem to care whether any of his over-familiar avant-garde tricks are organically related to the script. Instead, they're poured over it like a rancid sauce...What you find underneath is a staging that gets to the point of Miller's play with near-naturalistic directness. Not only does he move actors around fluidly, but he also knows how to pick them...Unfortunately, he neither trusts them nor the play, which is pretentious in its own way."
NorthJersey - Highly Recommended
"...It's hard to turn your eyes away from the stage for even an instant. This is theater at its most direct and enthralling, with the usual supporting elements stripped away so that the characters, on a nearly bare stage, are vividly revealed as creatures of pure, irresistible human impulse...If the atmosphere is stylized, the performances are totally naturalistic, led by English actor Mark Strong's haunting portrayal of Eddie."
Chicago Tribune - Recommended
"...Van Hove's brilliance is multifaceted, but much rests on his ability to focus the mind and soul on a work's tiny moments. Most telling in this case is the famous scene when the Italian immigrant, Marco (Michael Zegen), the moral conscience of the play, has a battle of strength with Eddie over who can best lift a chair. In most versions, the sequence is straightforward machismo. Not here. In this production, the symbolic chair dangles in the air in Zegen's hands like a weapon, not of the moment but of the future that awaits Eddie, the man who cannot change, as the play's weary narrator, Alfieri (Michael Gould), well knows."
NBC New York - Highly Recommended
"...The latest revival of "A View From the Bridge"—the Arthur Miller play is having its third Broadway outing in 18 years—will be noted for its stark set, ghostly sound effects and mesmerizing performance by Mark Strong, as the conflicted Italian-American longshoreman Eddie Carbone."
Time Out New York - Highly Recommended
"...The head that throbs the hardest is bullet-clean and belongs to Mark Strong, who gives a performance of harrowing intensity as doomed Eddie Carbone. The well-liked longshoreman is married to Beatrice (Nicola Walker) and for years they've raised her orphaned niece, Catherine (Phoebe Fox). Now Catherine is shy of 18 and hungry for a job and dates with boys. When her eye drifts to the flamboyant illegal immigrant Rodolpho (Russell Tovey), fresh off the boat from Italy, Eddie's semi-incestuous jealousy and weirdly paranoid homophobia erupt. Eddie appeals to local lawyer Alfieri (the excellent Michael Gould), who can see the man is dangerously obsessed with his niece, but does nothing. In some ways, View is as much the tragedy of the lawyer (who also narrates) as of the dockworker who cannot articulate or control his desires."
The Wrap - Recommended
"...Van Hove and his excellent cast take the lid off Eddie's obsessions and inhibitions, ending in a literal blood bath. Van Hove is highly dramatic, but he isn't always very subtle. Some of the performances, though, are both. Strong turns Eddie's tragedy into an utter inability and unwillingness to understand his own motives."
The Guardian - Highly Recommended
"...This is an exhilarating production, assured and perilous, abstract and concretely physical...In Mark Strong's extraordinary and visceral performance we see a man who has become a stranger to himself, a paragon of manhood unmanned and set adrift both by his own desires and by challenges to his masculine assumptions...Strong is well supported by the other cast members, though accents can waver between south Brooklyn and north London."
Deadline - Somewhat Recommended
"...I have to admit I'm of two minds about Van Hove's 'A View From the Bridge.' My 30-year-old critic self probably would have thrilled to the ballsiness of turning a naturalistic melodrama into a Greek tragedy...But my older-critic self says, 'Leave the damned play alone...' The Germans call this director's theater, and it's not for me. Despite a splendid cast led by Mark Strong as Eddie...And especially Nicola Walker, who is heartbreaking as Bea."
CurtainUp - Recommended
"...Van Hove has directed a classy cast to make the Carbone family and other key characters come to vivid and believable life...Mark Strong's Eddie is the magnetic centerpiece...A visually and aurally elegant production...There are a few spots between the breathtaking opening and finale that feel a bit slow without more realistic details about the neighborhood...Still, this is a a highly theatrical, not to be missed tribute to the play's durability."
Talkin Broadway - Somewhat Recommended
"...Van Hove's spin, however, does not deepen or redefine this basic struggle; it simply presents it, divorced from its anchoring location and era, as if overeager to highlight the story's timeliness...The performances are all rock-solid within a very difficult framework...This production proves that van Hove's attempts to untether 'A View From the Bridge' have only locked it away further, behind an opaque cube that, like that of his set, he'd better off lifting away."
TheaterMania - Highly Recommended
"...While this may seem like a bold reimagining of an American classic by a European auteur, it's actually a lot closer to Miller's original intent...The aptly named Strong embodies those urges in his earthy, virile portrayal of Eddie...Van Hove does Miller a great honor by taking 'A View from the Bridge' out of the museum and asserting it as a living, breathing work capable of being reimagined ad infinitum, like the best plays by Shakespeare."
Huffington Post - Recommended
"...With just six key parts, having two of them so poorly cast made a strong evening of theater seem a dreadful disappointment for being so close to greatness. A little more care and this would have been a classic staging...Strong and the two women in his life are exceptional and make this flawed but interesting production a must-see."
NY Theatre Guide - Recommended
"...The buzz around the current production hangs on the inventiveness of director Ivo van Hove. His refinement of the play to essentials, devoid of conventions of costume and set, offers us a truly fresh take on an American classic...A re-do of such an oft-produced play has to have a driving vision-or why go there? The vision here is raw in the primal sense of the word."
DC Theatre Scene - Recommended
"...The intense performance by Mark Strong, making his Broadway debut, supported by the rest of the outstanding cast, makes this 'View' worth viewing, but the powerful acting is not what makes this production distinct from previous versions. It's the direction by Ivo van Hove...aggressive staging has provoked passionate and opposing reactions...Any production whose cast so engages the audience with the playwright's words pays the ultimate respect to the playwright."
Broadway World - Not Recommended
"...His highly-stylized mounting, like many of his creations, seems to give his vision authority over the play's content. It's different, for sure, but enlightening? Not so sure. The cold and stripped-down production has enough textual cuts that it can be called 'A View From Abridged...' There seems to be a lack of subtlety that the director imposes throughout evening."
