When I read this line, which was spoken by Eric, I did not find it funny. When it was acted out it was funny because he started laughing out of the blue. Before the production I had no idea it had come comedy.
The lighting also created a better understanding of the play. By reading the play you can not tell what the lighting like. The lighting explains what is happening in the play. At the beginning of the play, I did not have a clear understanding of the mood. At the beginning the lighting was intimate in the production. When the Inspector comes the lights get brighter, as a sign that he has come to wake up the family and disturb them from their happy life.
The production also gave me a clear vision of the Inspectors appearance and the rest. Before the production all I knew about the Inspectors appearance was that he was:
“dressed in a plain darkish suit of the period.”
I thought maybe all the characters did. In the production I compared the Inspectors appearance to the rest of the family. This was a huge difference as the rest of the men wore fashionable suites which reflected their wealth. Even the women wore long dresses with lots of jewellery. This highlighted the contrast between the others and him. When the Inspector first came on, he was a dark figure clad in hat and coat holding an umbrella. His appearance helped me to understand what he was like; he seemed like a regular guy, with average amount of money but a strong personality.
I also thought he had a stubborn personality because of his posture. His always looked hard at a person, to show they are on the spot of being guilty.
What J B Priestly is trying to teach us is to encourage people to take responsibility for their actions, not to shift the blame to others. The use of the Inspector in the play was to convey Priestley’s own ideas and opinions. The Birlings are used to show now not to behave. The way the characters played their parts helped to get the message across:
“I can’t accept any responsibility.”
This is what Mr Birling says after being accused of driving Eva Smith to commit suicide by the inspector. This shows that he is a selfish and herd-headed man, who only cares about himself, his money and his reputation. This incident of Eva Smiths death made no effect on him emotionally or physically. He moved around showing he has no interest or responsibility for this suicide. This attitude of Arthur Birling brings out the inspectors opinion which is J B Priestley to show the audience two sides of it, but wants people to know the inspector is right.
Sheila is opposite of Mr Birling. She listens to the inspector and gets very emotional:
“if I could help her now, I would”
When Sheila finds out that she is a part of her death, she does start to blame herself and starts crying. Sheila regrets her selfishness and bitchiness at the time when she got Eva sacked. I thought she was a very strong character as she’s the most moral one out of the play. By reading the play I could not tell how she really felt. The production told me a lot more about her. This is because she got very worked up and did not have a clue what to do. She was like a chicken with its head cut off, as she knew she could not do anything about it. She understands the inspector and, she seems to agree with him more than her family and Gerald. She is a character that showed the audience that sometimes you do something wrong, but then afterwards you regret it. She was the only one that changed by he inspectors revelations.
Gerald is a bit like Arthur Birling and agrees with everything he says, which makes him a bit self-centred and greedy. He is quite an important character in the play; if he was not in the play the audience would have thought Mr and Mrs Birling were only inconsiderate and opinionated because of their old age. Gerald shows this is not true. When Mr Birling says that he did the right thing to sack Eva, Gerald agrees and says:
“I should say so!”
Eva’s death does not really seem to effect Gerald either. J B Priestley might have also put Gerald in because he is liar, as he lied to Sheila. He said he did not come near her because of his work, but later it came out that he was spending time with Eva secretly. So J B Priestley might be telling the audience not to lie, as it does not get you anywhere, whatever you did wrong you cant change as its always going to be your responsibility.
J B Priestley also got his message across by putting Mrs Birlings attitude the way it is:
“I’m very sorry. But I think she had only herself to blame.” Replied Mrs Birling, sure that she had done nothing wrong. In the production when she said this line she sounded very stubborn and cold hearted. When she said this line she did exactly all this to show she’s not guilty:
Eric seems to be a care-free guy, who could not care less about anything, this might have been caused because nobody really bothered about him. He did so many things wrong, but walked around like nothings happened. He got Eva(prostitute) pregnant and stole money from his fathers business to support Eva, not only that, he is also a very heavy drinker. He did not seem too bothered about everyone finding out he got her pregnant:
“Could I have a drink first?”
He does not care about what’s going on all he cares about is his alcohol. He also did not shift the blame to someone else, he accepted it. J B Priestley has probably put him in this play because it shows that sometimes you keep so many secrets, at some point you might get caught out and you have no way to cover it up, so you have to take the blame. Eric is unlike his mother and father, as they would not agree with the inspector that they have caused her death.
Gerald is the character which I think did not do much wrong. Before Eva Smith met Gerald, so many other horrid incidents happened which was a chain of events which drove her to commit suicide. I think Gerald did not have much to do with it because she was already frustrated with life that she was probably on the edge of committing suicide anyway. All Gerald did was make friends with her and let her live in an apartment, because he cared. Sooner or later he had to leave her as her loved Sheila and was going to get engaged, but cared for Eva as much as possible. I understand what situation he was in that’s why I sympathize with him. I sympathize with him because he did not want Sheila to find out as it would break her heart; and she would not understand that he was only caring for Eva. He was fidgeting on stage in case he gets caught out.
I personally think the rest of the characters were all very wrong with what they did. Mr Birling was wrong to sack her, he could have just kept her on, but still have rejected the pay rise. If she was not happy with that she could have just left herself instead of getting sacked. His attitude to what he did is also wrong; he thinks he’s too high to have sympathy for such a young and poor woman.
Mrs birling was wrong to not help her as she was prejudice and thought she was lying. That was her job, so she should have helped her, her attitude is also wrong because all she thinks is that it was Eva’s fault and not hrs at all.
Eric was wrong to get her pregnant and then leave her this also does not seem to affect him.
Sheila was wrong to complain to the manger about her just because she was jealous; she got her sacked for no reason. So this is why I sympathize with Gerald, as he did not do much wrong.
Although I think Sheila was wrong to get her sacked, I feel sorry for her because she is now in shock of what she’s done wrong like nobody else. She does not know what to do and feels sorry for Eva. Sheila also feels guilty for what she’s done:
“How could I know what would happen afterwards? If she’d been miserable plain little creature, I don’t suppose I’d have done it.”
She feels bad about what she’s done and would never do it again, I’m sure. The production made me feel a lot more sorry for her because she got very emotional, she also runs out of the room when she realises she got Eva sacked from Milwards.
The two characters I really do not feel sorry for are Mr and Mrs Birling. I feel like this because they do not admit their guilty, this might be because they think they have done nothing wrong that’s caused her death. At the production you could tell the difference in the characters response when the inspector told them they were all guilty. Mr and Mrs Birlings attitude was wrong:
“Rubbish! If you do don’t come down sharply on some of these people, they’d soon be asking for the earth.”
This shows Eva’s death had made no affect what so ever on Mr Birling, as he still thinks that what he did was right as he is the boss. Mrs Birling feels that it is not their responsibility for her death, and she spoke as if she thought she was right, and made herself look as if she doesn’t care less on stage:
“Simply because I’ve done nothing wrong – and you know it.”
Mrs and Mr Birling both know that they have got a lot of power. They know they have got the money, status and reputation and that’s all they care about. Even when they find out that their son got Eva pregnant, Mr Birling does not even seem that bothered, all he’s bothered about is the money. Mr Birling blamed Eric for letting Eva commit suicide, he did not say this first when he found out Eric got her pregnant, he only said it when he found out he stole money from his office. Then he starts going on about how Eric is going to have to pay him back, and forgets the whole concept of getting her pregnant:
“You must give me a list of those accounts. I’ve got to cover this up as soon as I can.”
He should not be that bothered about this as much as that all of them together have caused this young girls death. This is the reason why I don’t feel sorry for Mr and Mrs Birling for what they’ve done, because they don’t regret it a single bit.
I think J B Priesley wants the audience to think like I am. This is because the aim for him was for the audience to remember to take responsibility for their actions, not to shift the blame on to others. This is exactly what Mr and Mrs Birling are doing as they are not taking the responsibility for Eva’s death. The whole play is about responsibility, even at the beginning Mr Birling has a long talk about being responsible and then before the inspector leaves he then talks about being responsible.
Not only did the characters make the play clear at the production, but so did the music and sounds. The play started with a loud air raid siren, when the curtains flew up the siren stopped and some music came on, this was at the same time as you could hear the family’s laughter and speech. This made me realise right from the beginning that this is going to be a happy family having a good time. This bit of the play is not in the play (book) so it was easier to understand what was happening as the sound and music made it clear. When the Inspector came, there was no music; I think this was because it was too show there was an intense atmosphere. The sound and music affected the play a lot.
Overall the production helped me to understand the play a lot more. The acting skills of the characters made it easier for me to follow. J B Priestley’s aim came round a lot clearer as well; this was also because of the acting skills of the actors to show how to behave and how not to behave about taking responsibility.
