Before the play: A view from the second row.

Meade and I drove out to Spring Green last night to see the American Players Theater production of "A View From the Bridge." Here's what the Wall Street Journal theater critic, Terry Teachout, wrote about it a few days ago. Teachout called APT "America's finest classical theater festival, unrivaled for the unfailing excellence of its productions." Teachout hated a 2015 Broadway production of "A View From the Bridge." He called it a "flatulent exercise in Eurotrashy gimmickry." He called this APT production "a masterpiece of sustained tension" and "of the two best Miller revivals I've ever seen."*

Every aspect of [Tim] Ocel's production is distinguished, not least Takeshi Kata's set, a near-abstract assemblage of wooden warehouse pallets that is appropriately stark and austere. But it is [Jim DeVita, a 23-year company veteran,] who catapults it into the stratosphere. Unless you frequent Spring Green, you probably aren't aware that he is one of America's leading classical actors. Until now, though, I'd never seen him in a purely naturalistic role, and I confess to being just a bit surprised to discover that he can change hats with complete ease. His performance as Eddie Carbone, the hardworking, easy-to-anger Brooklyn longshoreman who harbors an illicit passion for his innocent young niece (Melisa Pereyra), is replete with the same force and focus that he brings to Shakespeare. Had Robert DeNiro chosen to be a classical stage actor instead of a movie star, he might well have given a performance as good as this one.

My picture shows the set before the audience was completely seated. The resonance between the stacks of pallets and the woman's dress is serendipity. We loved the whole cast. I wish APT would put out video clips. I wish I could show you a few random delightful things so you could see that it's not the great fall of the ordinary man Eddie Carbone. If there were clips available, I'd show you Will Mobley (as Rodolpho, one of the 2 newly arrived illegal immigrants who stir the plot) singing "Paper Doll" and entrancing the young niece while giving Eddie the "heebie-jeebies." The play isn't just about Eddie's sexual attraction to his niece (Catherine). It's also about Eddie's intense homophobia toward Rodolpho. As Eddie puts it, "he ain't right."

And I'd like a clip of the discussion of sardines (which the immigrants, Rodolpho and Marco had fished for, back in Italy (the year is 1955)):

BEATRICE: Y’know, Marco, what I don’t understand—there’s an ocean full of fish and yiz are all starvin’.

EDDIE: They gotta have boats, nets, you need money.

BEATRICE: Yeah, but couldn’t they like fish from the beach? You see them down Coney Island—

MARCO: Sardines.

EDDIE: Sure. Laughing: How you gonna catch sardines on a hook?

BEATRICE: Oh, I didn’t know they’re sardines. To Catherine: They’re sardines!

CATHERINE: Yeah, they follow them all over the ocean, Africa, Yugoslavia . . .

BEATRICE, to Eddie: It’s funny, y’know. You never think of it, that sardines are swimming in the ocean!

CATHERINE: I know. It’s like oranges and lemons on a tree. To Eddie: I mean you ever think of oranges and lemons on a tree?

EDDIE: Yeah, I know. It’s funny. To Marco: I heard that they paint the oranges to make them look orange.

MARCO—he has been reading a letter: Paint?

EDDIE: Yeah, I heard that they grow like green.

MARCO: No, in Italy the oranges are orange.

RODOLPHO: Lemons are green.

EDDIE, resenting his instruction: I know lemons are green, for Christ’s sake, you see them in the store they’re green sometimes. I said oranges they paint, I didn’t say nothin’ about lemons.

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*  The other production Teachout refers to is Mike Nichols's 2012 Broadway version of "Death of a Salesman" (which starred Philip Seymour Hoffman).