Evaluation of Blood Brothers, by Willy Russell Essay -- Blood Brothers

Evaluation of Blood Brothers On 3rd March I went to the Phoenix Theatre in West End to watch aproduction of one of Willy Russells greatest plays, Blood Brothers. Blood Brothers is set in Liverpool in the early eighties. The play follows the life of two main characters Eddie Lyons and Mickey Johnstone, who are replicates split at birth. In Blood Brothers the characters fall into two stereotypical groups the working coterie and the upper-middle class. The reason the play focuses on the difference in class is that the play was written in the reign of Margaret Thatcher who told the people of Great Britain to quality after themselves, and that in that respect is no such thing as asociety. Willy Russell was against this way of thinking and wrote plays opposing it. Mrs. Johnstone is a typical working class fair sex who lives on her own and spends more money than she earns.Mrs. Lyons is a typical upper-middle class woman, married and doesntwant her possessions being contaminated by the filth of the world, theworking class. Mickey, the twin that was kept by Mrs. Johnstone, is anarchetypical lower class boy, dirty ripped clothes and a mouth like asewer. Edward however is a stereotypical upper-middle class boy,smart, clean uniform that uses correct English grammar. These are thefour main characters, although there is one more character that playsa significant role in the musical, the narrator. The job of thenarrator in this play is to set the scene and bring aspects ofsuperstition into the play. He does this through his songs and hisdialogue. It seems slightly ironic that although the Johnstone familyis very poor they stick out off cheerfully, compared to the Lyons who arerich and never seem happy. This mak... ...projection ofthe tree on the floor. At the tensest moments the lights dimmed and aspotlight was put on the narrator to impart dramatic tension. The actors worked very well, the fact that adult actors playedchildren characters was barely noniceable. This is probably due to thecostumes that the actors wore. The actors that played the two boys Ifeel were especially good because not only did they have to lookdifferent ages throughout the play but they acted the ages as well. Ifeel this musical as a whole was excellent, there was very good usesof the dramatic techniques and staging techniques used by the Phoenixtheatre.Overall I enjoyed the play and would recommend it to people that enjoyplays where they dont have to follow on every detail in order tounderstand it. The way the narrator ties everything together makes thestory line make sense.