At the very beginning, the production opens with drawn curtains, to illustrate their private life and a conversation is heard behind the scenes between Mr Birling and family and Gerald Croft. Then the curtains open to reveal them in a closed and intimate house. I liked this technique as it gave a sense of intrusion that made the viewers intrigued to find out what was going on with in the family atmosphere. The house is made to look like a doll’s house from the outside, as it is quite small and it is set up high upon the back of the stage, on a slant, to show their high status.
The family are sitting in their living room celebrating the success of their daughter’s engagement to the son of a businessman of higher social status than the Birling family. The Birlings seem to live in luxury, with good quality solid furniture and a table laid with champagne glasses and port glasses and after dinner cigars. In the play, the audience could plainly see that this 'happy´ and ‘perfect’ family were very wealthy and felt that it was portrayed extremely well.
Later on in the production, after the inspector had arrived, the house opens like a doll’s house and reveals a small inside space. The opening represents their lives being made public because off the inspector investigating the suicide of Eva Smith, who represents the lower status community. This name is cleverly used, as it is a common name, representing all the working class people. She is at the mercy of wealthier people giving her work. Then when they comprehend that all of them, in some way, had contributed to the death of Eva Smith, the house tilts forward, and the crockery on the table falls and smashes to the ground. This symbolises that they are immoral and that their lives are crashing to the ground. This effect got Priestly’s message across to the audience that everybody’s actions affect somebody in a certain way.
One of the themes of the play is wealth, unequal power between the classes; this is shown in Mr and Mrs Birling’s actions. Mrs Birling shows this very clearly when she says, "whatever it was, I know it made me finally loose all patience with her. She was giving herself ridiculous airs. She was claiming elaborate fine feelings and scruples that were simply absurd in a girl in her position". Here, Mrs Birling is stating that a girl in her 'position’ has no right to give her own opinions. This also links up with the main theme 'collective responsibility’. We should treat everyone the same however poor or wealthy they may be. Everyone’s opinion matters. This would also make the audience feel angry towards Mrs Birling, they would get the idea she was a selfish, snobby and small-minded old woman.
During the first moments of the play, urchins, played by small children, entered from the side of the stage and started lifting up the curtains to signify poverty that the Birling family were shutting out, and how curious they are to see what is happening in the Birling’s lives. In addition, it also indicates how at some stage in the rest of the play, their once concealed lives were about to be exposed to the public. These urchins also represented the working class, like Eva Smith and how no one took notice or how they could not care less about them because of their low status compared with the high status society, like the Birling family.
As soon as the inspector enters the play, the atmosphere completely changes. Harsher lights are displayed to inform the audience of the characteristics of this new character. From the very second he walks in, the inspector grips the audience and the other characters with his cold stare and to the point attitude. He indicates a nemesis by his low and monotonous voice and by staying outside all through the play. His presence in the play represents a collective conscience of the family because they had all at least committed one of the seven deadly sins of; pride, covetousness, lust, envy, gluttony, anger and sloth. He did this by showing them a photo of a girl that has just committed suicide that they have caused and so he makes them feel guilty by wanting to prove that even at their standard they can too be morally wrong and responsible for doing something ruthless.
I thought it was very clever the pun of the inspectors surname. 'Goole’ could be linked with either fool or ghoul. Fool to show that the Birlings and Gerald Croft were fools because when the inspector made his speech, it left the Birlings and Croft subdued and wondering exactly what the it really meant. And ghoul because the inspector him self was actually one, he wanted to, in a way, scare the family to make them feel guilty about what they had done.
Daldry used the set of the play to put across the important message of
JB Priestly that there should be more equality and we should not take our lifestyles for granted. We also should take responsibility for our actions or we could end up in an awful situation, just as the Birlings and Gerald did when they received the phone call at the end to say an inspector was on his way round. In the anti – socialist speech, at the beginning of the play, Mr Birling said, “Every man should look after himself” but in the inspector’s last speech, he brought the new message to the attention of the audience that, "We are members of one body, we are responsible for each other", and I think that it sums up exactly what Priestly was trying to get across to the audience.
