Arthur Miller's classic, Panorama des del pont, arrives at the Teatre Goya under the direction of Sílvia Munt, who admits: "I have always been in love with this play." A play that places us in New York in 1955, a time when European (and especially Italian) immigration is in full swing and where newcomers have to hide to survive in a city that needs and despises them equally.
This situation sounds familiar, doesn't it? And it is that Miller's work, despite being written in the last century and being set on the other side of the Atlantic, is a reflection of our reality: immigrant people leaving their countries full of misery and crossing the sea to have a new opportunity in life. Another era; another country; but the same situation, seventy years later.
Panorama des del pont places us in an immigrant community neighborhood (as our current Raval could well be). A neighborhood where buildings seem about to collapse, where walking at night can be dangerous, but a place where neighbors help each other. Because many of them have gone through the same situation (or, at least, their families): arriving in a new country, with new customs, new culture, but with the same need for money, work and food that all human beings have, wherever we come from.
Seventy years of persecution, fear and the American dream
Eddie Carbone is the protagonist of this story. A man of Italian origin who lives with his wife and niece in an apartment in this immigrant neighborhood. The bond he has with his niece is very strong: they need each other, they complement each other, life seems more beautiful when they spend time together. But the innocent girl is already eighteen years old, she is no longer a little girl; now she is a woman who has to work, has to find her own way and has to start becoming independent from her uncles.
One day, some relatives arrive by boat. They enter the country illegally and Eddie takes them in temporarily at his home. He gives them work at the port and helps them take their first steps in that country where immigration is beginning to be brutally persecuted: denunciations from neighbors can cause the police to enter your home, search and deport undocumented people who may be inside. That is: exactly the same thing that is happening today with ICE, but in the mid-20th century.
Two Italian boys arrive in New York chasing the American dream, the same dream that Arthur Miller's family pursued when they moved to America from Poland. The author experienced the Great Depression firsthand, as his family was financially ruined and he showed how fragile the idealization of American life was. In Panorama des del pont, two young men cross the Atlantic to try to survive a desolate Europe after World War II: Marco and Rodolfo. They move into Eddie's house and that's when they come into contact with the rest of the family and, specifically, with Catherine, the niece.
Marco is a family man who has been forced to leave Italy to send money home; Rodolfo is his younger brother who, despite having no responsibilities, moves to New York hoping to have a better life. Rodolfo is full of joy, vitality, and a desire to conquer the world; an energy that connects with Catherine and, together, they begin a relationship that Eddie disapproves of from the first minute.
The descent into the hells of perverse purity
From this moment on, we accompany Eddie on his particular journey to hell. A maelstrom of jealousy, possessiveness, and pain will begin to cross him until it eventually leads him to betray his principles and those of his community. These feelings are very well described by Miller when he says they are "of a perverse purity." Because love is always pure, but it can also be perverse; love can move us, but it can also cause us repulsion. And these opposing feelings are what we feel with Eddie's character: understanding and incomprehension at the same time, disgust and compassion at the same moment. Miller manages to make a very human analysis of how love can end up becoming everything but love: violence, possession, and jealousy.
David Selvas is Eddie Carbone, a passionate character, firm in his ideas and convictions, until someone arrives who shakes his well-being. Then, seeing his own survival threatened (but in his case it is emotional survival, not physical) he will bring out all the artillery to defend it. The struggle between emotional and physical survival becomes evident between the two antagonists: Eddie and Rodolfo, the uncle and the immigrant. Both fight to survive, each on their own plane, but willing to do whatever is necessary not to "die" in the attempt.
An interpretive duel between metamorphosis and innocence
Selvas does an extraordinary job. He presents us with an Eddie vulnerable before his niece, an affectionate, familiar, loving Eddie... An Eddie who transforms completely when he sees his emotional survival in danger. This metamorphosis is magnetic: the protective and affable man gradually fades away until he provokes a visceral rejection in us. But he also moves us: we would hug him and help him get out of that dark hole where his perversion has led him. Perverse purity, there is no better way to describe him.
Laura Gaja, Catherine, also presents us with a very close, real character. An innocent girl who would never in her life imagine the nature of her uncle's feelings. A young woman trapped between guilt, tenderness and repulsion. We see her laugh, cry, get angry, and we move with her on this whole roller coaster of feelings because she is a victim; a victim who doesn't even know she is in danger. Until reality unfolds and she discovers the darkest side of affection.
A necessary tragedy
In Panorama des del pont we see how good and evil shake hands. How love and hate can coexist within a relationship. How even the best actions can have the worst motivations. Eddie is the clearest example: a man who, driven by love, ends up betraying all his ideals and rejected by his entire community.
Sílvia Munt has directed a show full of intensity. With the figure of the lawyer as the main narrator, we learn about this tragedy that speaks to us of immigration, patriarchy, love, and the survival of the human being. A survival that does not always have to be biological: it can also be emotional. Because, no matter how much the heart continues to beat, if we lack love for life, we can feel that we are dying inside.