Actor to perform 28th role at North Coast Rep in Arthur Miller classic (original) (raw)

This month, San Diego actor Richard Baird takes on his 28th role at North Coast Repertory Theatre, playing hard-bitten longshoreman Eddie Carbone in Arthur Miller’s “A View from the Bridge.” His first was in Tom Stoppard’s “Arcadia” in 1999.

“Sean Murray was still artistic director there and he cast me as Valentine Coverly when I was 18,” Baird said. “I remember vividly that day that when it came time to do our graduation ceremony at Patrick Henry High School. I did the walk, I threw my hat in the air and immediately left because I didn’t want to be late for rehearsal.”

Richard Baird stars in North Coast Repertory Theatre’s “A View From the Bridge” (Richard Baird)

These many years later in “A View from the Bridge,” Baird is being directed by North Coast Rep’s current and longtime artistic director, David Ellenstein. It marks Baird’s first role in an Arthur Miller play.

“I’ve worked on him (Miller) in scenes studies, and I did a reading of ‘The Crucible,’” Baird said. “It’s struck me how much he has in common with Ibsen, which is the playwright he studied quite a bit in his youth. Like Ibsen his structure really builds tension. ‘View’ is not one of his longer plays. Maybe that’s why it’s enjoyed so much success on Broadway. It’s actually been on Broadway four or five times.”

“A View from the Bridge” opened on Broadway in 1955 as a one-act play before being expanded by Miller a year later. Set in the volatile Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn, it finds Eddie Carbone immersed in a cauldron of internal and external conflicts that involve his wife Beatrice (played by Margot White), her young niece Catherine (Marie Zolezzi) and Beatrice’s two immigrant cousins (played by Lowell Byers and Coby Rogers).

“Eddie’s home is his kingdom,” said Baird. “His throne is a rocking chair. He’s trying to hold onto the possessions in his kingdom, and his niece is in a sense the princess stuck in the tower.

“This is a man that before the play begins is certainly a man of respect in his neighborhood, even though he’s not a powerful individual. Eddie s a forgotten man. He’s worked like a dog for 20 years — now he’s not understanding why people aren’t listening to him anymore.”

Baird is drawn to the antithetical nature of the character.

“While on the outside Eddie presents this very toxic male behavior and is very alpha and tough, inside that’s not what’s going on at all. The shell of the man is saying ‘I want my respect.’ Deep down he’s in desperate need of a psychiatrist.”

Both Baird and Frank Corrado, who plays the Italian-American lawyer Alfieri in this production and is also the play’s narrator, urged North Coast Rep’s Ellenstein to stage what the director says is “one of my favorite Arthur Millers.”

“I really understand its power,” Ellenstein said. “Miller is working with the idea that man has a civilized nature and an animal nature, and it is a constant fight as to which will be in charge and which is really appropriate for man. The structure is like a Greek tragedy. Alfieri acts as a chorus. He starts talking about how we’re civilized now and (how) we settled for half and he likes it better that way.”

Ellenstein praises Miller as a playwright who “explored the nature of what it was to be a person in America at that time (the late ‘40s through the early 1960s). He was a conscience for the better good in people. He pointed out our failings, where our foibles were. He understood the temptations that we all face.”

Though “A View from the Bridge” is set in the mid-‘50s, “These characters are archetypes, not stereotypes,” Baird said. “In that regard they will always be relevant.”

Following its engagement at North Coast Rep, “A View from the Bridge” will move up the coast in late October to Laguna Playhouse, where Ellenstein is also the artistic director.

‘A View from the Bridge’

When: Preview, tonight at 8 p.m. Opens Saturday night and runs through 2 p.m. Oct. 6. 7 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays; 8 p.m. Fridays; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays; 2 and 7 p.m. and Sundays

Where: North Coast Repertory Theatre, 987 Lomas Santa Fe Drive, Solana Beach

Tickets: 52−52-52−74

Phone: (858) 481-1055

Online: northcoastrep.org

Originally Published: September 13, 2024 at 6:00 AM PST