A View From The Bridge involves the audience and their emotions. Arthur Miller has used various methods to keep these emotions controlled. He has used calm scenes between those of high tension and emotion, but the main method is the chorus figure. The audience listen to Alfieri, for many reasons. They respect his opinion because he is a Lawyer, but they also like his character and can connect with his position in the play.
He comments on the action in a previous scene and gives hints as to the action in the next, "He worked on the piers when there was work", "After they had eaten, the cousins came." In doing this, he exercises a key role of the chorus character - they can comment but not intervene, "I could have finished the whole story that afternoon."
This also gives the audience the feeling that Alfieri is simply re-telling the story, because he speaks in the past tense, except when he's talking to another actor in the play. Alfirei's character is as a Lawyer. The community in the play respect Alfieri, and view him as the authoritative figure in the play. As Alfieri reminds us in his introductory speech, Lawyers are only thought of in connection with disasters.
(Another theme that Arthur Miller uses Alfieri to portray, it that of repetition. In the introductory scene, Alfieri refers to the repetition of events throughout history when he says, "Another lawyer, quite differently dressed, heard the same complaint." Alfieri also repeats himself throughout the play, reinforcing this theme. In both his main scenes as a Lawyer he says how, "His eyes were like tunnels," referring to Eddie.)
In most of Alfieri's scenes he develops the action, moving time forwards and setting the new time, place and situation, as he does in both of the next two scenes. In the first of the two scenes, the audience feel again like they know what is going to happen, "He was as good a man as he had to be." This also starts another repetition, as it is said again in the concluding scene.
In the second of these two scenes, Alfieri hints at what is to come in an abstract way. The cousins have arrived and the story of Vinnie Bolzano has been told, when Alfieri starts his next soliloquy with, "Who can ever know what will be discovered?" He ends it with, "There was a trouble that would not go away." This is reinforcing the idea that the chorus character can comment but not intervene with the action.
I think Arthur Miller put Alfieri into the play as a Lawyer because as a Lawyer he can talk to the characters and give them advice. Without Alfieri in the play, the audience wouldn't be able to find out what the characters were thinking. This is especially true for Eddie, who is not very articulate, "But I'm telling' you, you're walkin'wavy." Whilst in the Lawyers office, Alfieri reveals what Eddie is thinking to the audience. After a Lawyer scene, the audience knows why Eddie believes he is doing what he is, and they may even sympathize with him. The only time Eddie shows his feelings is when he's inside Alfieri's office.
As a chorus character he knows what is going to happen, but even so he tries to stop it, "She can't marry you, can she?" He also sees Eddie's feelings, and tries to relate them to the audience, "There is too much love for the niece"
The scene after this is where Eddie challenges the masculinity of Rodolpho. Without the Lawyer scene the audience wouldn't have known why exactly Eddie was challenging Rodolpho. After watching the Lawyer scene, the subtext becomes much clearer to the audience.
Here we have a clear departure from the rules of conventional where actors don't talk to the audience as this breaks the fictional illusion. This facilitative and introductory role, mediating between audience and stage-action, was something undertaken by the Chorus in Greek theatre. Alfieri's role and manner seem to be the modern equivalent of this ancient device.
