Blood Brothers evaluation.
Written by Willy Russell
Performed at the Phoenix Theatre, London
Performance date 27 March 03
The performance was melodramatic with big hand gestures and with altered voices. Being melodramatic and the big gestures made it clearer to see what was happening on stage especially as the audience was seated so far away from the actions of the characters. The narrative was set in an old road in Liverpool with Liverpudlian accents, so the actors altered their voices to cockney accents to create a believable setting.
The staging was well thought out because the stage was narrow and the seats were plotted around the stage with three floors and lots of seating. It had a rich and luxurious feeling to it and the audience must have felt the same way too, especially with the binoculars built into the seats. The cyclorama (hanging cloth/sky cloth) had a big affect on the audience because it created an illusion of stars and night, which is not commonly used on most stages so it was particularly impressive. The thing that makes or can make musicals in this genre more attractive are props because they add colour, they make it more realistic, added connotations and helps you to tell what is happening by symbolic representation.
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Peer Reviews
Here's what a star student thought of this essay
Quality of writing
The Quality of Written Communication is very good. The candidate, from a Theatre Studies perspective accurately applies important theatrical terminology, although in some places the application is a little awry, making the essay feel a little clunky due to perhaps an incorrect understanding of some terms. From an English perspective, the essay is fine, with a good adherence to the rules of Standard English (grammar, spelling and punctuation).
Level of analysis
The Level of Analysis shown here is fair. The candidate may given their information a little unclearly, but their personal response is evident. They might be better off considering the benefits of some of the aspect of the performance they weren't impressed with, such as how the set may have been a composite set, in which case the revealing of the inner workings of the set and the 'puppeteers' in the flyers, wings and backstage are all meant to be visible, and so this is not so much an issue for the excellence of performance. However, as there is no indication of this set design in use, the candidate is not at fault. I would, regardless, like to see a more balanced criticism of some of the performance not-so-impressive aspects.
Response to question
The use of images and photographs in this essay greatly enhance to finished product, but unfortunately the reader relies on them too much to imagine properly how the performance went. There is a clear understanding of the areas of theatre that need attention - acting, staging, sound and lighting - but the execution of the evaluation is unclear at times and the candidate often makes simple errors, like mixing Liverpudlian accents with Cockney ones. Elsewhere, the structure is fairly good and work well for the candidate, as they dedicate a paragraph to each theatrical feature however, the introductory paragraph is slightly askew in it's intentions, and tries to cover too much random detail without appropriately broadly approaching the task set, such as saying in long-hand the name of the production, the playhouse, the date and the company which performed the play. Also, the concluding paragraph doesn't appear to exist, and this is a fundamental error because candidates are marked on their ability to structure a cohesive essay. Think of introductions and conclusions as sort of 'bookends' and you'll see why they're so important without them the whole thing feels open, and slightly slapdash because there is no real reason given for the essay without an appropriate introduction and conclusion.