National Theatre Live: A View from the Bridge

You wouldn't have known it, but something amusing has just happened

You see how uneasily they nod to me? That's because I'm a lawyer

In this neighbourhood to meet a lawyer or a priest on the street is unlucky

We're only thought of in connection with disasters, and they'd rather not get too close

I often think that behind that suspicious little nod of theirs lie three thousand years of distrust

A lawyer means the law, and in Sicily, from where their fathers came...

...the law has not been a friendly idea since the Greeks were beaten

I'm inclined to notice the ruins in things, perhaps because I was born in Italy

I only came here when I was twenty-five

In those days Al Capone, the greatest Carthaginian of all, was learning his trade on these pavements

And Frankie Yale himself was cut precisely in half by a machine gun...

...on the corner of Union Street, two blocks away

Oh, there were many here who were justly shot by unjust men

Justice is very important here

But this is Red Hook, not Sicily

This is the slum that faces the bay on the seaward side of Brooklyn Bridge

This is the gullet of New York swallowing the tonnage of the world

And now we are quite civilised, quite American

Now we settle for half, and I like it better

I no longer keep a pistol in my filing cabinet. And my practice is entirely unromantic

My wife has warned me, so have my friends

They tell me the people in this neighbourhood lack elegance, glamour

After all, who have I dealt with in my life?

Longshoremen and their wives, and fathers and grandfathers

Compensation cases, evictions, family squabbles, the petty troubles of the poor. And yet...

Every few years there is still a case, and as the parties tell me what the trouble is...

...the flat air in my office suddenly washes in with the green scent of the sea

The dust in this air is blown away and the thought comes that in some Caesar's year...

...in Calabria perhaps or on the cliff at Syracuse...

...another lawyer, quite differently dressed, heard the same complaint

And sat there as powerless as I, and watched it run its bloody course

- You working tomorrow? - Yeah, there's another day yet on that ship

This one's name was Eddie Carbone

A longshoreman working the docks from the Brooklyn Bridge to the breakwater where the open sea begins

- I'll see you tomorrow, Eddie - See you Louis

Hi, Eddie

- Where you going all dressed up? - I just got it. You like it?

- Yeah, it's nice. What happened to your hair? - You like it? I fixed it different

He's here, Bea

It's beautiful. Turn around, let me see in the back

If your mother was alive to see you now, she wouldn't believe it

- You like it? - You look like one of them girls that went to college

- Where you going? - Wait till Bea comes in, I'll tell you something

Here, sit down. Hurry up, will you, Bea?

What's going on?

- I'll get you a beer, all right? - Come over here, talk to me

- Tell me what happened - I want to wait till Bea comes in

Guess how much we paid for the skirt

- I think it's too short, ain't it? - No

- Not when I stand up - Yeah, but you gotta sit down sometimes

Eddie, it's the style now. I mean, if you seen me walking down the street...

Listen, you been giving me the willies the way you walk down the street, I mean it

- Why? - Catherine, I don't want to be a pest...

- But I'm telling you you're walking wavey - I'm walking wavey?

Don't aggravate me, Katie, you are walking wavey

I don't like the looks they're giving you in the candy store

And with them new high heels on the sidewalk?

Clack, clack, clack, The heads are turning like windmills

But those guys look at all the girls, you know that

- You ain't all the girls - What do you want me to do? You want me to...?

- Don't get mad, kid - Well, I don't know what you want from me

Katie, I promised your mother on her death bed. I'm responsible for you

You're a baby, you don't understand these things. I mean like when you stand by the window, waving outside

I was waving to Louis

Listen, I could tell you things about Louis, which you wouldn't wave to him no more

Eddie, I wish there was one guy you couldn't tell me things about

You're getting to be a big girl now. You gotta keep yourself more, you can't be so friendly, kid

Bea, what are you doing in there? Get her in here, will you? I got news for her

- What? - Her cousins landed

No! Bea! Your cousins...

- What...? - Your cousins got in

- What are you talking about? Where? - I was just knocking off work before

Tony Bereli come over to me, he says the ship's in the North River

- They're all right? - He didn't see them yet, they're still on board

But as soon as they get off he'll meet them. He figures about ten o'clock they'll be here

And they'll let them off the ship all right? That's fixed, hey?

Sure, they give them regular seamen's papers, they walk off with the crew

Don't worry about it, Bea, there's nothing to it. Couple of hours they'll be here

What happened? They wasn't supposed to be till next Thursday

I don't know. They put them on any ship they can get them out on

Maybe the other ship they was supposed to take there was some danger

What you crying about?

I just... I can't believe it. I didn't even buy a new table cloth

You're saving their lives, what are you worrying about a table cloth?

They probably never even seen a table cloth in their whole life where they come from

I'm just worried about you, that's all I'm worried

Listen, as long as they know where they're gonna sleep

I told them in the letters. They're sleeping on the floor

Beatrice, all I'm worried about is you got such a big heart, I'll end up on the floor with you...

- ...and they'll be in our bed - All right, shop it

Because as soon as you see a tired relative, I end up on the floor

When did you end up on the floor?

When your father's house burned down I didn't end up on the floor?

- Well, their house burned down - Yeah, but it didn't keep burning Torture weeks

All right, look, I'll tell them to go some place else

Beatrice, wait a minute. I just don't want you being pushed around, that's all

You got too big a heart. What're you so touchy?

I'm just afraid if it don't turn out good you'll be mad at me

Listen, if everyone keeps his mouth shut, nothing can happen. They'll pay for their board...

- Oh, I told them... - Then what the hell. It's an honour, Bea. I mean it

I was thinking just before coming home, suppose my father didn't come to this country...

...and I was starving like them over there. And I had people in America could keep me a couple of months

That man would be honoured to lend me a place to sleep

You see what he is? You're an angel. God will bless you

- You'll see, you'll get a blessing for this - I'll settle for my own bed

- Go, Baby, set the table - We didn't tell him about me yet

Let him eat first, then we'll tell him. Bring everything in

What's all that about? Where's she going?

No place. It's very good news, Eddie. I want you to be happy

- Well, what already? - She's got a job

- What job? She's gonna finish school - Eddie, you won't believe it...

No, no, you gonna finish school. What kinda job, what do you mean?

- All of a sudden you...? - Listen a minute, it's wonderful

No, it's not wonderful. You'll never get nowhere unless you finish school

You can't take no job. Why didn't you ask me before you take a job?

- She's asking you now, she didn't take nothing yet - Listen a minute

I came to school this morning and the principal called me out of class, see? To go to his office

So I went in and he says to me he's got my records, you know?

And there's a company wants a girl right away. it ain't exactly a secretary, it's a stenographer first

But pretty soon you get to be secretary. And he says to me that I'm the best student in the whole class

- You hear that? - Well, why not? Sure she's the best

I'm the best student, he says, and if I want, I should take the job

And at the end of the year he'll let me take the examination and he'll give me the certificate

- So I'll save practically a year - Where's the job? What company?

- It's a big plumbing company over Nostrand Avenue - Nostrand Avenue and where?

- It's some place by the Navy Yard - Fifty dollars a week, Eddie

- Fifty? - I swear

What about all the stuff you wouldn't learn this year, though?

There's nothing more to learn, Eddie, I just gotta practise from now on

I know all the symbols, I know the keyboard. I'll just get faster, that's all

And when I'm working I'll just get better and better, you see?

Work is the best practice anyway

- That ain't what I wanted, though - Why? It's a great big company

- I don't like that neighbourhood over there - It's a block and half from the subway, he says

Near the Navy Yard plenty can happen in a block and a half

And a plumbing company. That's one step over the waterfront. They're practically longshoremen

Yeah, but she'll be in the office, Eddie

I know she'll be in the office, but that ain't what I had in mind

- Look, she's gotta go to work sometime - Listen, Bea

She'll be with a lotta plumbers? And sailors up and down the street? So what did she go to school for?

- But it's fifty a week, Eddie - Look, did I ask you for money?

I supported you this long, I support you a little more. Please, do me a favour, will you?

I want you to be with different kind of people. I want you to be in a nice office

Maybe a lawyers office someplace in New York in one of them nice buildings

I mean if you're gonna get outa here, get out. Don't go into practically the same kind of neighbourhood

Go, Baby, bring in the supper

Think about it a little bit, Eddie. Please. She's crazy to start work

It's not a little shop, it's a big company. Some day she could be a secretary

They picked her out of the whole class. What are you worried about?

She could take care of herself. She'll get out of the subway and be in the office in two minutes

- I know that neighbourhood, Bea, I don't like it - Listen

If nothing happened to her in this neighbourhood it ain't gonna happen no place else

Look, you gotta get used to it, she's no baby no more. Tell her to take it. You hear me?

I don't understand you. She's seventeen years old, you gonna keep her in the house all her life?

- What kinda remark is that? - Well, I don't understand when it ends

First it was gonna be when she graduated high school, so she graduated high school

Then it was gonna be when she learned stenographer, so she learned stenographer

So what're we gonna wait for now?? I mean it, Eddie, sometimes I don't understand you

They picked her out of the whole class, it's an honour for her

With your hair that way you look like a Madonna, you know that? You're the Madonna type

- You wanna go to work, huh, Madonna? - Yeah

All right, go to work

Hey, take it easy! What're you crying about?

I'm gonna buy all new dishes with my first pay. I mean it. I'll fix up the whole house, I'll buy a rug

- And then you'll move away - No, Eddie

Why not? That's life. And you'll come visit Sundays, then once a month, then Christmas and New Years

- No, please - I only ask you one thing. Don't trust nobody

You got a good aunt but she's got too big a heart, you learned bad from her. Believe me

Be the way you are, Katie, don't listen to him

You lived in a house all your life, what do you know about it? You never worked in your life

- She likes people. What's wrong with that? - Because most people ain't people

She's going to work. Plumbers, they'll chew her to pieces if she don't watch out

Believe me, Katie, the less you trust, the less you be sorry

- First thing I'll buy is a rug, eh, Bea? - I don't mind

I smelled coffee all day today. You unloading coffee today?

- Yeah, a Brazil ship - I smelled it too. It smelled all over the neighbourhood

That's one time, boy, being a longshoreman is a pleasure. I could work coffee ships twenty hours a day

You go down in the hold, you know? It's like flowers, that smell

- We'll bust a bag tomorrow, I'll bring you some - Just be sure there's no spiders in it, will ya?