Later on, Eddie asks both Marco and Rodolfo whether they would like to go and see a boxing game and he is willing to pay for the tickets. “I’ll treat yiz. What do you say Danish? You wanna come along? I’ll buy the tickets”. This line also creates tension as Eddie has gone from insulting Rodolfo to offering to buy him tickets to a game. It also leaves the audience questioning as it did me, “why would someone that has just been insulting someone suddenly change and offers to treat them to a game, if there was nothing behind it?” Eddie asks both brothers if they had ever seen a boxing match, where both Marco and Rodolfo answered “No!” Considering both brothers had the same response, Eddie still chooses Rodolfo to teach boxing, when he could have chosen Marco. Here, Miller leaves the audience confused as to why Eddie is acting this way? At this point the onlookers, particularly Catherine and Beatrice become very apprehensive, as they have known Eddie longer than Marco and Rodolfo, therefore they know more about him and know that his anger is building. This creates tension between the characters as well as the audience. “Come Rodolfo, I show you a couple of passes.” This is where Eddie offers to teach Rodolfo a bit more about boxing. The audience is left wondering whether Eddie’s intentions are good or bad, knowing that Eddie does not like Rodolfo and is the point where they realise that Eddie has under surface emotions. All Eddie can think of at this point is making Rodolfo aware of how much he hates him. I think Eddie’s initiative makes him think that offering to teach him boxing will give him the chance to hurt as well as humiliating him.
Whilst pretend boxing, Eddie laughs to try and make it seem as though he is trying to be friendly, therefore the others will not suspect what he is up to. The boxing itself creates tension which rises because Beatrice and Marco are sitting down watching Eddie and Rodolfo in total silence. I believe this boxing idea was Eddies chance to show Catherine that he was more of a man and Rodolfo was a wimp as he kept looking over his shoulder to see the expressions Catherine wore on her face, totally ignoring Beatrice and what she might think because at that moment Beatrice wasn’t his reason for what he was doing. There is still silence between the other characters as the boxing progresses and becomes more violent until Eddie punches Rodolfo sending him to the ground. Miller once again uses stage directions to show the increasing tension, “Marco rises.” This builds tension, as the audience might think that Marco is getting up to intervene and get Eddie back for punching Rodolfo. As Marco rises, Catherine also rushes towards Rodolfo instead of Eddie, attending to him to make sure he was not injured. This makes Eddie angrier as he sees his plans have backfired.
There is another moment of silence as Marco looks head on at Eddie. Rodolfo rushes to Catherine and asks for a dance as a way of breaking the silence and tension in the room. Miller again uses stage directions to emphasise the awkward silence between the characters, “Marco takes a chair, places it in front of Eddie and looks down at it. Beatrice and Eddie watch him.” This point is also a tension builder, as no one knows what Marco’s intentions with the chair are. Marco looks towards Eddie and asks him if he can lift the chair with one hand. Eddie thinks it’s easy, but after many attempts realises that it’s difficult. When failing to complete the task, Marco shows him how it’s done managing to lift the chair all the way above his head. Once again Miller uses stage directions and moments of silence between the characters for the audience to feel the tension.
“He kneels, grasps, and with strain slowly raises the chair higher and higher getting to his feet now. Rodolfo and Catherine have stopped dancing as Marco raises the chair above his head.” The greatest tension is here, as no one knows what Marco will do with the chair that is now high above his head as everyone stops what they are doing and stands to watch Marco in complete silence, even Eddie. Marco’s actions have a clear motive behind them that although Eddie may have shown that he is stronger than Rodolfo, therefore more of a man than him, however Marco is stronger than Eddie and therefore more of a man than him.
Lastly Miller uses stage directions to end this scene, “Marco is face to face with Eddie, a strained tension gripping his eyes and jaw, his neck stiff, the chair raised like a weapon over Eddie’s head and he transforms what might appear like a glare of warning into a smile of triumph, and Eddie’s grin vanishes as he absorbs Marco’s looks. Tension is broken at the suddenness of the change of Marco’s facial expression as the audience are now aware that he had no bad intentions for the chair that was above his head. I think Eddie’s grin vanished from his face after Marco smiled out of triumph because he then understood the motive and felt ashamed in his own house of this event being head of the household. Finally, I think the sense of opposition and competition in this scene contributed to the tension making.
In conclusion Miller mostly used stage directions to create the most points of this scene that had the greatest tension points. The storyline for this play was excellent, as I think if a fight had taken place it would have changed the perspective of the play to the audience and the motive of the scene would not have been so effective.
