Teen Times: Let's go back to a recent Wednesday night. You'd be forgiven for making assumptions if I were to tell you that I was in town with a group of friends from school.
Being in sixth year, Junior Cert results night is very two years ago by now. This didn't, however, stop me or my 26 classmates setting out on Junior Cert results night to a venue that required neither fake ID nor tan.
The Gate production of Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge is absolutely brilliant. Christopher Meloni's portrayal of Eddie Carbone, a longshoreman in Brooklyn who is in love with his orphaned niece Catherine, is not only startlingly convincing but also an unnerving expression of the empathy we have for the irrational and selfish.
In the opening scene Catherine proudly shows off her new clothes and image to her uncle. In what is perceived initially as nothing more than avuncular protectiveness, Eddie says of the skirt "I think it's too short, ain't it?". Catherine responds, "no - not when I stand up", to which Eddie retorts, "yeah, but you gotta sit down sometimes". And so short skirts became a theme of the evening.
On the way home, sitting on the top deck of the 15A at its depot by Trinity, I had a great view of skirts. Lots of skirts. Below me, waiting to get on the bus, were a crowd of drunk Junior Certers wobbling about on their heels; giggling and shouting hysterically. I stared down at them, bemused. A little too long. One of the loudest, with one of the shortest skirts and well, with not one of the thinnest pairs of legs, caught my eye. With a menacing look in her glazed eyes she shouted up at me, "what are you looking at?".
I had many answers to that question, but as she was out of earshot and it's rude to shout on a bus when you've illegally paid child fare, I simply grinned and waved. She nudged her friends and pointed at me, and soon I was waving to the whole group.
As Eddie's character develops, we see a man at the brink of madness emerge. His loyal wife Beatrice, played with sensitivity and intelligence by Cathy Belton, is left to watch as her marriage disintegrates and her niece struggles to become independent from Eddie and his inappropriate feelings.
A crucial moment in the play comes towards the end of Act II, when Beatrice says to Eddie, "You want somethin' else, Eddie, and you can never have her!" Suddenly the situation is made raw. The truth is finally exposed and Eddie, perhaps for the first time, recognises his feelings for what they are. This feeling of identity remains with me on the way home. Do these drunk kids know who they are? Do they know what they look like?
Alfieri (John Kavanagh), the narrator, ends the play with reference to Eddie - "he allowed himself to be wholly known, and for that I think I will love him". These kids, on the other hand, let themselves be "wholly shown" and for that I feel sorry for them.
One Wednesday night, and whether we're standing on the bridge in Brooklyn or over our very own River Liffey, there certainly is a breath-taking view to behold.
Kate Ferguson (17) is in sixth year at Wesley College, Dublin
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