On the Waterfront

Published Monday 28 April 2008 at 14:10 by Pat Ashworth

Eight wooden chairs and a crude silhouette of the city skyline is all it takes to create the wharves, bars, tenements and the catholic churches of fifties New York in Steven Berkoff’s flawless production at Nottingham Playhouse.

On a bare and raked stage, everything else is conjured up through his trademark physical theatre and in mime, from the moistening thumbs of the Mob flicking wads of dollar bills to the crushing of a body by the release of imaginary ropes and the bobbing drollery of pigeons in a loft. The ensemble of actors plays both the rain-coated gangsters and the exploited workers, moving in slow motion to evaporate into the mist surrounding the docks.

Sometimes the creeping Mob almost tiptoes into parody. But brutality is only ever a whisper away, in a shock frenzy of beatings or a nightmare cab ride. Even while the gangsters stand as onlookers in the shadows, stimulating the hum of the traffic from growling throats, the unpredictability of what they might do next prevents any lightening of the tension.

This is a brilliant and remarkable cast, with outstanding performances from Simon Merrells as Terry Malloy, Coral Beed as the virginal Edie Doyle, Sam Douglas as Johnny Friendly and Vincenzo Nicoli as Father Barry. The priest’s tirade on where Christ would be found, down among the dockworkers, is a huge, impassioned cry for justice, and one which provokes the play’s dramatic conclusion. It’s a breath-catching climax of extraordinary power, and I wouldn’t dream of giving it away.