Show how the production of ‘An Inspector Calls’ enhanced the script and furthered your understanding of the play. Refer to themes and characters in your analysis.

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Show how the production of 'An Inspector Calls' enhanced the script and furthered your understanding of the play. Refer to themes and characters in your analysis.

The play 'An Inspector Calls' has been performed in a variety of ways since it was written in 1944 and first performed in 1946 at the New Theatre. It is believed that the production I saw, the Daldry version which opened in 1992 in the west end, was how Priestley envisaged it being performed when he was writing it. He once saw a version of the play which was performed in a box set with a standard living room set. At the end Priestly said that that wasn't how he had imagined his play being performed whereas when he saw one in Moscow which used a cyclorama, a curved white canvas on which lights are shone to achieve different effects and atmospheres and he liked this version the most. In the Daldry performance which I watched at the Lowery theatre they used a transparent canvas as a backdrop which had a panoramic scene of a street painted onto it. Lighting was used to achieve the affects of night and day. In moments of truth the lights got brighter and white representing purity and in moments where the Birling's were hiding things from the Inspector and the audience the set got darker representing the fact that you cannot see as well in the dark and this is when evil protrudes.

The Daldry Performance always includes the use of a proscenium arch so that the red velvet curtain can be hung. The red velvet curtain is used to represent the barrier between the Birling family and the rest of the world. At the beginning of the play there is a small boy dressed in clothing of the era trying to get under the curtain but keeps failing to do so. This is showing how the Birling family have cut themselves off from the world. By just reading the script you do not see this dimension very clearly.
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The staging techniques adopted by Daldry help to further the point about the Birling's separating themselves from the rest of the world. The fact that the house which the Birling's live in is set up on stilts above the level of the street enhances the point that they see themselves as being above everyone else. The street is dirty and has Edna the maid there emptying the rubbish. This image contrasts with the big warm house with elaborate décor to provide a complete difference between their world and everyone else's world. One by one as each of the ...

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