There was one basic lot of scenery for the play with five different backgrounds including the city, the countryside, two houses, and a law office. The one bit of scenery was two separate terrace rows of houses placed parallel to each other at about 10 metres apart. All the acting took place within this space however you could often hear voices that came from various parts of the set.
The roles were relatively simple and distinctive. You could instantly tell without knowing too much about either family’s background, the type of personality of any individual from the way they spoke and moved around. The upper class family seemed to have much less energy than the lower class families and spoke in a very posh way with more intellectual words.
The play carried, and was based on, two main themes. It concentrated mainly on the issue of baby twins being separated at birth and with this comes the reason for the mother to give one of them up. Money. Mrs Johnston simply couldn’t afford to keep two children on top of her other kids so had little choice to give her child away.
For me the most humorous moment came in the first half of the play and happened between Mickey, Linda and Eddie. The scene was made up with a very short discussion on who Mickey’s best friend was. It highlighted the way in which younger people speak so boldly and frankly to each other without considering the consequences.
There weren’t really very many props used with the play but the ones that were used were used in a practical way as opposed to symbolic. However there was an exception to this rule, with the idea of superstition, which was new shoes being on the table being bad luck.
The production was made exciting because of all the paths the play could of taking and you were never quite sure were it would go next, it had a good mix between humour, and seriousness, which the play enjoyable.
The play gave me fresh ideas on how to use my space on stage to the top of its potential. This visit to the theatre has encouraged me to go and see more productions. It’s important that I continue to see live productions as it teaches me how plays should be carried out correctly.
The production left me in a state of good humour. With the funny bits being the bits I can mainly remember. The production made me think about how lucky I am to be in a good family and not have major problems with money.
This essay was written by Eddy Williams 10n1.
