A View From Scarlett Johansson's Bridge

This summer has starred some pretty heavy film talents on Broadway and it isn't letting up now. Not Miller s most successful play, but famous nonetheless, A View From The Bridge will star Scarlett Johanson on Broadway, part of a growing trend with Hollywood actors and actresses. Miss Johansson, aged 24, will show up in the Great White Way alongside famous actor Liev Schreiber in this 1950s American drama about a dockyard worker in Brooklyn, NY who s obsessed with his 17 year old niece (Johansson). It hasn t hurt that who s preceded her have been the likes of X Men and Wolverine drone Hugh Jackman, 007 Bond man Daniel Craig, and smoking while pregnant star Catherine Zeta Jones (I'm sorry, I had to say it). But Johansson is a talent that is worthy of the label unlike most of her contemporaries: She acts, she sings, and now she is coming drastically close to putting those two together, albeit the slow and thoughtful way, by stage acting in a not so famous famous Arthur Miller play.

She's making a strong career move. With very strong ticket sales from the 2008 and 2009 on Broadway season, it s obvious that Hollywood stars are ensuring the success of Broadway and thus the success of themselves. It could be that a mixture of a bad economy and the I now download most of my media syndrome are causing people to seek better avenues for their buck, or maybe it s just the level of interest in theater arts that the straight to film actors and actresses are feeling they are missing. Either way, producers on Broadway are now saying it's essential to have big film actors and actresses to ensure sucess.

Johansson apparently does whatever she thinks she is capable of, but not outside of her range of reality, and gets away with it. Let s face it, she s a young twenty something actress who made it big at an incredibly early age, she s got ties with some of the hippest folks in the industry (Woody Allen, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Bill Murray and Sophia Copola, Tom Waits, David Bowie, need I mention more?), her album sounded like a cross between The Velvet Underground (with Nico of course) and Mazzy Star and managed to get into the top albums of the year for 2008 with Billboard and NME, and now she s moving from film to stage just like that. Who wouldn't commend this? Jealous folks maybe? Cynics?

The question is moot, though. If you had already done everything there was to do in Hollywood, what exactly would YOU do, short of starting a new career as a stage actress? She has her pick of avenues in which to express herself, a rare and sought after position to be in. Without talent, she could be one of the thousands of beautiful women trying to get ahead in the industry, and instead she s managed to pull off her rolls with ease, almost as if she was born for it. Maybe she was? Maybe it s Mabeline? Maybe I'm just a sucker for her high cheekbones. Regardless, there is no doubt in my mind that Broadway will find her similarly endowed.