The play is divided into two acts. Act one deal with the story of the play up to the move and to the age of 14 of the kids. Act two sets the scene till they die. In act 1, come all the humour and enjoyment of childhood. The amusements and the games that children play and the humour has all been fitted into act 1. Act 2 focuses more on the serious adult life’s. Problems such as unemployment, love, support and superstition taking over the life’s of the characters, bring together a strong emotional appeal.
The music plays a very important role in the production of the play. The music and the lyrics sets the atmosphere and gives the background information about the play. The upbeat rhythm gives the good and happy times in the play, where as the slow drum beats gives the bad times in the play. Very upbeat and fast music is used in the scenes where the children are playing and when the families are moving. When it comes to the serious parts and when the narrator speaks very deep and slow rhythmic beats are used. This creates the tension in the play and within the audience.
There is no suspense in the play of Blood Brothers; the audience are introduced to the play with the two dead bodies of the two brothers. The audience are then taken on a flash back through the events of their lives, on a track to find how they came to die. The suspense is also killed by the narrator and the prologue. Willy Russell sets the audience of on to the path of finding out the truth for themselves, in the opening act:
“ An’ did y’ never hear of the mother, so cruel,
There’s a stone in place of her heart?
Then bring her on and come judge for yourselves
How she came to play this part.”
The audience are included into the play to make their own judgements about the situations in the play. Russell provides the audience with enough reasoning’s to show that the fate of the characters were decided as a consequence due to the inferiorities of society and he strongly criticises this idea.
The significant factors in the musical is the upbringing and their social backgrounds. The use of dramatic irony and superstition and a small essence of suspend disbelieve in many areas leads us to how the families’ fate was sealed.
The play reflects upon the story of two different families, the Lyons and the Johnston, and the story of two boys, Mickey and Edward. The play follows their lives and the problems that they face. This is similar to Romeo and Juliet where the play focuses on two families. The Montagues and the Capulets, where the story focuses on the lives of the two particular youngsters in the family, Romeo and Juliet.
The Johnstone family is a working class. Mrs.Johnstone, who was rushed into early marriage due to pregnancy, is poorly educated and fairly superstitious. She and her children lives in a house that is basic and cramped. She is occasionally visited by the bailiffs and the milkman, as she has money that has yet to be paid from her buying on the ‘never never’. She is limited by the jobs that she is able to do, due to her limited education.
By contrast Mrs. Lyons is part of the wealthy middle class family. She has no need to work as her husband earns enough to make a good living. She lives in a big house and can afford to have servants and live in a wealthy enjoyable lifestyle.
Mrs. Johnstone’s kids are brought up as street kids, as she does not have much time to look after them, due to her working style. Mrs. Lyons, unfortunately has no kids due to medical problems. She is limited to adopt a kid as her husband does not approve of such ideas.
Children brought up in wealthy middle class families would be brought up amongst books and expected to succeed in life. They may attend a public school and would be expected to ‘marry well’ and take up a prestigious and well-paid job.
In Blood Brothers, Willy Russell breaks up two twins and places each in these different sections of society. He then draws them back together as friends and creates different situations in their lives until the last moment when they die.
Through this he is trying to convey the point that its society that divides people up into different beliefs.
There is the use of a pathos right at the end of the play, this is a very important method used in the play to emphasize the point that Willy Ruslle is making. Mickey says:
“ You! Why couldn’t you have given me away!”
This brings on a horrible reflection of our society and on Mrs.Johnstone. Although we should consider the fact that, Edward didn’t actually have a better life. This reflects on the human state of wanting what others have. We are never happy with what we have but is naturally drawn to what some one else has. This can be related to almost every one who watches the play, which adds to the reality and makes it more enjoyable.
The play is a reflection of real life in many ways to most people. The problems in the play can be somewhat related to real life as well. It is this reality link of the play that makes it so admired. The moral values and superstition in the play can make the audience think about their own lives. At the beginning scene of the play the narrator say:
“ There’s a stone in place of her heart? Then bring her on and come judge for yourselves.”
From the beginning of the play itself the audience are asked to decide for them selves about what they think is right or wrong. Through this Willy Ruslle proves his point to the audience that, it was none other than society and its moral values that created such a tragedy to ensue. This makes the play more interesting as people can create their opinions about the situation, since everyone lives in a society where moral issues are still a problem in some cases.
An interesting piece in the story is how it twists round superstitions. What once is said as a superstition then becomes reality. An obvious example is the death of the two brothers. Mrs. Lyons in her desperation to get rid of Mrs.Johnstone uses, Mrs. Johnstones believe in superstition to get rid of Mrs. Johnstone. She says:
“ You do know about twins, secretly parted, don’t you?......... if either twin learns that he once was a pair, they shall both immediately die”.
At the end of the play this becomes reality, the two brothers die immediately after they find out the truth about each other.
The play deals with problems of divorce, single mothers, lack of education and money with the use of Mrs. Johnstone’s character. She is a woman who is poorly educated and left to look after seven kids on her own. Due to her lack of education she struggles on the money she can make to barley live with her seven children. Some of these issues are quite common problems in our society and this reality side of the play makes it more interesting for the people watching it as they can relate it to them selves.
Poverty is still a problem in our society, with many single parents and families struggling to get their next meal. This is shown through the play and makes people realise how these situations can twist people to make different choices. It is known statistics that in the modern UK where it is a developed and rich country , that there are still around two million children who are living in poverty.
The play also touches on sensitive topics such as infertility, violence and unemployment. There are still around 3 ½ people in the UK that are unemployed and around 1 ½ million who are paid less than £4.50 per hour. The infertility problem with Mrs. Lyons, the constant employment problems faced by Sammy and then followed by Mickey. The use of guns for theft and robbery by Sammy. Theses are all problems that some maybe able to relate to, if not it is certainly an interesting aspect on which people can think about. The essence of these sensitive topic makes it quite interesting to watch.
The relationship between the mother and child in the play is also very interesting. There is a great comparison between the relationship of Mrs. Johnstone and Mickey, and Mrs. Lyons and Edward. Mrs. Johnstone and Mickeys relationship is very close and understanding even though Mrs. Johnstone hasn’t actually spent a lot of time with Mickey with her work, they have quite a close intimate relationship where they understand each other, when it comes to the real matter. This is demonstrated, when Linda gets pregnant and Mickey talks to her about it and asks Mrs. Johnstone if they can stay in Mrs. Johnstones house. She responses in an understanding and considerate way.
Mrs.Johnstone: “ At you, some hypocrite I’d be. No…I’m not mad son………you’ve not had much of a life with me, have y’?
Mickey: “Don’t be stupid, course I have. You’re great, you are, Mam….”
With the relationship between Mrs. Lyons and Edward, even though Mrs.Lyons really loved Edward and cared for him a lot, he had never actually loved her back in the same way.
“If you loved me you’d let me go out with Mickey because he’s my best friend. I like him more than you.”
This is one of the parts to the play that might appeal to some people as it does still happen, and it is also a very interesting fact to see that Mickey and Mrs.Johnstone have a closer relationship with each other, even though they don’t spend a large amount of time with each other. Whereas, with Mrs. Lyons and Edward, there is a weaker relationship, even though Mrs.Lyons has spent a large amount of time with Edward.
The narrator plays a very important role in the play. He brings back the reality side of the story and gives us the questions that will make the audience think about the play. He always attends in the shadows and gives the audience the vital background pieces of information. He gives voice to the characters inner feeling and emotions. It is through him in which the audience can understand the good and evil in the characters. This is similar to the Greek tragedies. In those plays the chorus gave the vital piece of information that was needed for the audience to understand the characters feelings. An example of the use of the narrator is when, Linda is in the situation where she is not sure if she should phone Edward to talk to him or not.
“There’s a girl inside a women
Who’s waiting to get free
Shes’s washed a million dishes
She’s always making tea.”
The repetition of themes in the story carries on another theme.
‘All actions have consequences and fate never leaves you alone’
This is a theme that may interest peoples opinions, as people are often encountered with decision making and acting accordingly to their situations. A mixture of religion and culture also adds to the belief in fate and consequences that people may or may not wish to believe in. Some of the things in the play that follow this statement are the attachment of Mrs.Lyons to Edward that in the end becomes a cause to his death.
There are powerful relationships that are made with the audience to the characters that enables the audience to be able to relate to the matters that the characters are put under.
The eternal love triangle that is build between Linda , Mickey and Eddi form an unusual pattern where there are lots of different types of explainable and unexplainable types of love. The love between Linda and Eddi, shows a clear eros type love. The love between Mickey and Eddi is phillia. The love between Eddi and Linda are quite different as Eddi had different feelings towards Linda, as to what she had back to him.
There is also a neurotic fear that is developed through Mrs.Lyons, as a result of her suspicion and lack of trust and self-confidence in herself. This leads to her being persuaded into killing Mrs.Johnstone.
“ I curse the day I met you, you ruined me”
There are still a lot of people that are destroyed because of their lack of trust in someone that they ruin it for themselves in our society. This relates to those who find these subjects matter.
There is also the symbolization of guns leading to violence since the childhood of the children. The guns started with the pretend guns that were used by Mickey to kill the Indians.
“……desultory. Shoots down a few imaginary Indians…..”
The gun symbolises the incense and fun of childhood at this stage. The gun then progresses on to become an “air-gun”, that Sammy has which they use to shoot the “thing of Peter pans statue in the park”.
This then further advances into the gun that is used in the robbery and then to its last and final development, the gun is used as the weapon that inadvertedly kills Edward and Mickey.
The gun is hidden in the floor boards by Sammy, along with the hidden desperation. When Mickey takes it out he finally takes out all his desperation, it outlines his feelings being freed along with it.
The sudden use of violence and guns builds up the tension in the play. The violence between Mrs.Lyons and Mrs.Johnstone, The violence between the robbery and the garage etc… It’s quite interesting that even with all the violence happening around in the play, there is no evidence of domestic violence. This is how Ruslle criticises his point that violence is all around us and in the community.
The use of Sammy’s character is the way that Willy Russle has chosen to add in the violence in the play. As the audience we know all the way that he is going to be part of Mickey’s downfalls. Mickey is weak since he was a child. It was always Linda who provided Mickey with support.
Linda: Leave him alone!
Sammy: Why?What’ll you do about it if we don’t?
Linda: I’ll tell my mother why all her ciggies always disappear when you’re in our house.
His character is very important as it is what leads Mickey to fall apart mentally as he provokes him to help him with the robbery.
In conclusion the different elements in the play, the characters the setting the story line all have made the play a popular piece amongst the audience and will continue to do so. Each time convincing people that it is not oneself or their families that causes the downfalls in life’s but society itself, with its moral rights and wrongs. It will make the provoke the people to rethink about where their problems have risen from. This essence of the play will keep it going and will ensure that the play is successful throughout the ages.
Mariya Abdulla
Blood Brothers
