Drama Coursework - Evaluation Of Live Performance

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Blood Brothers by Willy Russell

Evaluation of live performance

On Thursday 12th of February 2009, we went to the phoenix theatre, Charing Cross road to watch the musical “blood brothers” by Willy Russell. The play Blood Brothers is about twins who were separated at birth by their mother Mrs Johnston, who would not be able to cope with even more children. She was working as a cleaner for a rich lady, Mrs Lyons who can’t have babies so she persuades Mrs Johnston to give her one. As they grew older, they meet and even through the disapproval of Mrs Lyons become friends. However they fall in love with the same woman and this conflict ultimately leads to their tragic deaths.

I enjoyed the starting scene as it started as a freeze frame of the ending scene where the brothers died, there were only lights in the background shining like stars while the rest of the stage was in darkness. This added to the sad, emotional mood of the scene, all you could see was two dead bodies lying in the dark with all the other character standing around looking down on them. Then as the other characters gradually left the stage and the police took away the dead bodies the spotlight came on the narrator as he introduces the play.

The live production of the play was entertaining and some spectacular acting performances bought the play to life. Craig Price - who was playing the narrator was one of them, he did a good job of acting scary and mysterious lurking around in the background of every scene. Then constantly appearing behind Mrs Lyons and Mrs Johnston scaring them and acting like their conscious shouting, "the devil's got your number." His part as the narrator was also important as he helps the audience understand what's going on, in the first scene because they started at the end and did they play as a flashback, his introduction was important.

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Stephan Plalfreman who was Mickey was also another good actor, he had a vital role in the play and I think he did well. During the scenes in which he was playing the seven-year-old Mickey, he added comedy and made it funny which was contrasting to the tense scenes between Mrs Johnston and Mrs Lyons before it. This stopped the play from becoming boring and kept it interesting. Stephan did well to show that he was a seven year old, acting childish and funny. However in other scenes, like the pills scene after he got out of prison or ...

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