Azdak’s opinion of a true mother was the one who couldn’t hurt the child at it’s own expense. I believe that is true. There are many parents who beat and treat their children badly just because they are their blood it doesn’t mean they are true parents. To be a true parent doesn’t imply real genetic children. In that case it be a real mother. A true mother is one that loves and cares for her children through thick and thin.
There has been some evidence to believe that Azdak and Brecht shared the same opinions. He used Azdak to portray himself. Azdak believed that you should have class boundaries everyone was equal. He often wore rags and went into posh restaurants and ate among the elite. Azdak seems to be the same. The meaning of the play seems to be illustrated on page 96. Where Azdak chooses the real mother. It shows the feud over the land and how the real mother wants to keep the child for the inheritance of the land and how the true mother wants the baby because she loves him.
Brecht plays weren’t superstitious. They weren’t driven by fate, everything that happened did happen uncoincidentally. Blood Brothers was driven by fate. The absolute coincidence that Mickey and Edward actually met. That Mickey took Edward Home etc.
The meaning of Blood Brothers is illustrated when the mother meets her child for the first time. I believe this symbolises that no matter how long you take something away from someone that loves it, they will still love it years from that time. Love is eternal.
These two pieces had very different and similar production styles. The both had very contrasting acting styles. In Caucasian Chalk Circle the songs were used to draw the audience out and in Blood Brothers it was used to draw the audience in, it reinforces the bond between audience and character. Caucasian Chalk Circle was different, as the characters weren’t based on realism but just on an issue. The issue involved love as we have discovered. The characters weren’t all appointed names so we didn’t feel emotionally involved in their affairs. Also people played more than on character and most of the time appeared on stage. This is all apart of alienation or verframdungseffen. They always face the audience to talk so I doesn’t always seem as they are talking to the other characters to let you know it isn’t real. They sing songs to make you realise they aren’t really the person they are playing. The same reason they stand on stage. The singer sets the seen and as this play is epic theatre, it also sets the time. When the songs are sung everyone not in character joins in. I discussed multi role the reason this is evident in Caucasian Chalk Circle is because if you see someone as two people then you will remember he isn’t really feeling this emotion, he isn’t really dying for example. In Blood Brothers there is a pacific narrator so you feel he is a higher figure telling you what is happening, informing you. He is not a multi role. He doesn’t draw us to far out. Although to me, he did slightly. The lighting in both plays also differs completely. Brecht usually does his in daylight as we did ours in. Blood Brothers used many different shades and also used spotlights to highlight certain characters with the different time sttings being indicted by light changes. We used normal light as Brecht would to create less of an atmosphere. Blood Brothers was a very atmospheric piece. Blood Brothers was a musical and used many realistic SFX sounds to help realise the piece. Like our performance of it Caucasian Chalk Circle doesn’t use this technique. We never used any instruments where Blood Brothers did during the singing and tenacious moments. The biggest one difference between these pieces is that in Blood Brothers you are encouraged to become involved and Caucasian Chalk Circle is non-naturalistic.
In our piece we used physical theatre. We used a member as a table to alienate the audience with a very simple set which is representational, every item represents something significant, it isn’t just their for display. All we used in our piece was a couple of chairs and a table. We used real cheese but had an actor holding the cheese allowing more physical theatre to be installed. We had two different types of chairs so the audience could establish the difference in status once you become a judge, a superior figurehead. In Blood Brothers we saw a very modern, compiled set its presentational their to look at, to draw the audience in. It included houses and was a full mis en scene. Everything you would expect in a usual neighbourhood was there. Although the minimum furniture etc was used it was still quite a lot. There are two semi-permanent areas, the Lydons house and the Johnstone house. We see the interior of the Lydons comfortable home but only the exterior front door of the Johnstone home, with interior scenes taking place outside the door. The area between the two houses acted as a communal ground for street scenes and park scenes.
The props used in both plays again differ incredibly. In Caucasian Chalk Circle there are few props used in order to lower realism and for practical easy removal. In Blood Brothers amount of props are endless. They use as many as they need to allow the actors to perform their piece in the most ideal and realistic fashion. When the time comes to change the set it is done with a curtain closer or something which distracts your attention thus to keep the realism. Eg the interval. Whereas in Caucasian Chalk Circle it is done whatever it doesn’t matter. It allows you to see the characters out of role in front of you again alienating you, acting as a reminder that the aren’t really their character. In both pieces I think exaggeration and stereotypes are used. Slightly more in Caucasian Chalk Circle. In Blood Brothers they use extreme poor and rich to allow you to realise the difference. They also so the stereotypical way they act. With the naughty children and the hard working mum. In Caucasian Chalk Circle every character is exaggerated and stereotyped so he/she isn’t all that realistic. Like the Priest. He is over the top and a stereotype. You hear of many drunk, staggering frauds as priests. Mainly because their job is so holy people want them not to be seen as so innocent. So in Caucasian Chalk Circle you see the priests as one of these but overly exaggerated. He asks for huge sums of money for a illegal marriage and also is drunk well passing it. The costumes in these two pieces were pretty similar. They were as the character would were them. Eg Mickey was poor had poorish clothes, Azdak believed in not showing wealth wore raged clothes.
In conclusion I’d like to point out the fact Blood Brothers started at the end and then went to the beginning whereas Caucasian Chalk Circle worked the chronological way through. Also we had to make many decisions in our group. We elected Tom Wells as our leader and most discussions we had ended in some sort of rational decision. Many times one of us took the role as director and edited certain scenes. Finally I’d like to point out that although very different styles, both performances were equally enjoyable and I thought both in and out of school quality was in evidence.
