Headlong, Octagon Theatre Bolton, Chichester Festival Theatre and Rose Theatre will present a new production for our times of Arthur Miller’s classic A View from the Bridge, opening on 8 September at the Octagon Theatre Bolton.

Acclaimed stage and screen actor Jonathan Slinger (Hamlet, RSC; Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, West End) will play the role of Eddie, marking his first time on stage in an Arthur Miller production. He is joined by Nancy Crane (Inside Man, BBC; Summer & Smoke, Almeida/West End) who will be the first woman to play the role of Alfieri in a new production that looks at the psychology of the play and its gender politics afresh.

Jonathan Slinger said: “I am thrilled to be working with the highly acclaimed Headlong Theatre and Artistic Director, Holly Race Roughan on what will be my first time taking to the professional stage in a piece by the great Arthur Miller. Being from Lancashire myself, Bolton’s Octagon Theatre is a theatre close to my heart and the ideal venue for us to debut this fascinating new production that examines Arthur Miller’s classic text.”

Nancy Crane added: "Holly’s production is going to be a new perspective on one of Arthur Miller’s best-known plays. I’m excited to be the first woman to play Alfieri and can’t wait to see what it does to the play’s themes of masculinity and toxic masculinity. A modern-day Greek tragedy about love and identity and belonging and revenge, it seems to me incredibly relevant in 2023."

They are joined by Kirsty Bushell (Richard III, RSC) as Beatrice, Rachelle Diedericks (Our Generation, NT/Chichester) as Catherine, Elijah Holloway in his professional stage debut as Louis/Immigration Officer, Luke Newberry (When Winston Went to War with the Wireless, Donmar Warehouse) as Rodolpho, Tommy Sim’aan (Vigil, RSC) as Marco, and Lamin Touray (Bouncers, UK tour) as Mike/Immigration Officer.

The brand-new production will be directed by Headlong Artistic Director Holly Race Roughan. Holly said: “Quite honestly, A View from the Bridge remains one of the most extraordinary plays I have ever read, and it is an honour to be co-producing it alongside some of the country’s most important theatres.

“Mounting the first major revival in the UK for nearly a decade, I am eager to explore its startlingly relevant themes with today’s audiences: the human price of a country’s immigration policies, ripping into the personal roar of suppressed feelings and the tenderness of romantic love. As with all my work, I am very interested in the thin membrane between the unconscious and the conscious.

“I am also excited by the play’s brutal and honest exploration of masculinity and how that sits with a modern audience. By casting Alfieri as a woman I hope to illuminate further the presence of the ‘feminine' emotional intelligence in the play, and its offer to help build a new kind of masculinity.”

The full creative team includes set and costume designer Moi Tran, composer and sound designer Max Perryment, lighting designer Alex Fernandes, and movement director Malik Nashad Sharpe.

On the Brooklyn waterfront, where the fierce passions of ancestral Sicily linger, the orphaned Catherine falls for her handsome, newly arrived cousin Rodolpho – an illegal migrant. Their romance is encouraged by her aunt Beatrice but stirs complex feelings in her uncle, Eddie Carbone. As tensions rise, their story spins inexorably beyond control.

Following Bolton, the production will visit Chichester Festival Theatre from 6 October and Rose Theatre in Kingston from 31 October.

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