EXPLAIN HOW THE TWO MOTHERS ARE DIFFERENT AND WHY RUSSELL PRESENTS THEM IN THIS WAY? The musical play Blood Brothers, written by Willy Russell, is the story of twins separated at birth
EXPLAIN HOW THE TWO MOTHERS ARE DIFFERENT AND WHY RUSSELL PRESENTS THEM IN THIS WAY? The musical play Blood Brothers, written by Willy Russell, is the story of twins separated at birth. Mrs Johnstone, a working-class Liverpudlian mother of seven children, agrees to give one of the twins she is expecting to her wealthy but barren employer, Mrs Lyons. The infant kept, Mickey Johnstone, grows up in poverty while his twin, Eddie Lyons, enters a privileged life. Bound by fear of discovery, and superstition that should either of the boys learn he has a twin, both will die on that day, so the mothers keep the exchange secret. Completely unaware that they are brothers, Mickey and Eddie meet as seven-year-old children and form friendship that lasts until the day they die. It is that concluding tragic event in fact, that is the opening scene of the play, which then backtracks to recount their separate and interwoven lives of success and despair. Willy Russell wrote "Blood Brothers" in the 1960's. He was born in 1947, in Whiston which is just outside Liverpool, and has based the story here around his own experiences. He grew up in Liverpool in a working class family, singing in clubs to earn a living and at the age of 22 he worked in a warehouse to raise money for college. He was confronted even from an early age with the injustice of the two-class society. Thus there are clear
At the beginning of the play "Blood Brothers", the narrator introduces Mrs Johnstone as The mother so cruel is this an accurate description of her?
At the beginning of the play Blood Brothers, the narrator introduces Mrs Johnstone as �The mother so cruel� is this an accurate description of her? Blood brothers is a play about two twin brothers, Mickey and Edward who are separated at birth, due to the fact their mother, �Mrs Johnstone� can�t financially and physically cope with looking after both children and both ending up growing up in completely backgrounds; one a quite privileged background and the other a poor upbringing. In the beginning of the play the mother of Mickey, Mrs Johnstone is described as �a mother so cruel�, in a way she is cruel. However is this description an accurate description of her? This is an accurate description in a way, because she gave away one of her twin children, which can be seen as horrible thing to do, because no matter what circumstances, someone is in, they should never give away one of their children if the truly �love them�. She is also cruel, because she is betraying both of her sons in a way, not only Mickey, because she is lying to them and not telling them that they have twin brothers. Also, the fact she won�t even let Mickey play with Edward or go near the �big houses� is cruel, because they should surely be allowed to be friends and going near big houses isn�t going to be unsafe for
Sunday Dinner - review
Sunday Dinner Sunday Dinner is a one-act play written by Caleen Sinnette Jennings. It is a comedy written in 1993. It is set in the Morgan family home. An elegant old house which stands in what once was a beautiful, upper-class Black neighbourhood. Inside, the Morgan home has all its original furnishings, meticulously and loveingly cared for. The living room where most of the story takes place is a picture of life in another age. A settee, an overstuffed chair, doilies, an antique table with framed family pictures on it, ornate lamps, family portraits on the walls. The room is cluttered, somewhat somber and in need of painting. Charl (Charlene) Morgan, Nat (Natrelle) Morgan and Ray (Rayette) James are three African- American sisters who live extremely different lives. Nat, the eldest, is a teacher who lives for the church and preserves the family home as a monument to their decreased mother. Ray, the middle one, is a home maker. She has two toddlers at home, Ronnie and Paul, and is pregnant again, with an unemployed husband. Charl, the youngest, is an up and coming TV reporter, living in the fast lane. She is always out late at night coming in at all hours of the morning and is mad about aerobics. After a long period of estrangement, the three come together for Sunday Dinner in their childhood home. Nat prays, Charl does
The Perfect Relationship - Gilgamesh and Enkidu
The Perfect Relationship There needs to be great effort, selflessness, and warmth from both sides in order to have a decent relationship, and it takes much more work to have a perfect one. In The Epic of Gilgamesh we can observe several relationships, but the one between Gilgamesh and Enkidu is the most significant. Both men, who are equally strong, feel the need to unite their strengths and weaknesses, their courage and fear; they are growing together emotionally and physically, making a perfect team. Gilgamesh feels an enormous abyss after Enkidu's death, and in his grief to the city counselors on page 94, he releases his thoughts and feelings about his relationship with Enkidu. The relationship they have is that of two soul mates, who emphasize sharing and compliment each other. Gilgamesh is very devoted to Enkidu as Enkidu once was devoted to Gilgamesh. Now he is weeping for his friend Enkidu; he is "bitterly moaning like a woman mourning" (94). Gilgamesh's grief is as strong as a deep and emotional woman's cry and sorrow for her loved ones. Gilgamesh also calls Enkidu his brother which is another piece of evidence of his closeness with Enkidu. Brothers as close blood relatives usually share everything, and love each other unconditionally. Gilgamesh also calls Enkidu "a glorious robe," which is the most important amongst others, and which wraps the body very close, and
Blood Brothers by Willy Russel - a critical review.
Blood Brothers - 1 On ......... we went to see 'Blood Brothers' at Bristol Hippodrome. 'Blood Brothers was written by Willy Russel, it has now been around for 15years, and based on the production we saw, I can see no reason why it won't last another 15years. This production could be described as an emotional rollercoaster, the extremely convincing actors, the well written, thought provoking and very refined script are the main reasons for this. This script is as refined as it could possibly be, as after 15years not a word is spoken that is not needed, and there is no movement, accent or piece of scenery that looks or sounds out of place. The story line of this play is very simple, A very poor woman living in a council estate in Liverpool is expecting twins. She already has too many children than she could afford, so she reluctantly agreed to give one twin up to her employer, Mrs Lyons, who lives in a nearby mansion. The two boys, Eddie and Micky are brought up separately, with very different upbringings. The boys meet again at the age of 7, they discover they were born on the same day and decide to become blood brothers. They remain strong friends, however, until their different classes effect their relationship very strongly in adulthood. This may be a very entertaining story, but the play is not just a story. Willy Russel is trying to symbolise and take a stab at the
Drama portfolio work - Blood brothers, review of personal performance.
Drama department GCSE portfolio work Blood brothers (A02) In class we did various scenes . upper class father losing his job and telling the family 2. lower class father losing his job and telling the family 3. upper class mother is pregnant again 4. lower class mother is pregnant again In scenes 1 - 4 I worked with: Max who played my husband in both upper and lower class, Karis who played my daughter in both upper and lower class, Keith who played my son in both upper and lower class and Thomas who played a guest in upper-class and my son in lower-class. In scene 1 it is set at the dining table and we have a house guest and everyone is very well spoken and very polite. But the children were so good, they even showed the house guest around the house, while I spoke with my husband he told me he lost his job and I broke down and we then tied in scene 3 in the same scene, I then told him I was pregnant and he took it very well and said that he was delighted and we will get through the financial side of things quickly. We also tied in scene 2 and 4 together. This time my family were very rude and straight to the point there was no set place to have dinner, my elder son doing drugs at the box we call a table. And my other kids where In front of the television. I told my husband that I was pregnant, and he asked if he was the father. When he told me he lost his job I
Differences Between The Social Worlds
GCSE English Coursework Differences Between The Social Worlds Of Miss Johnstone and Of Mrs. Lyons in the play "Blood Brothers" Blood Brothers seems to have been set in the 1970s/80s around Liverpool. There is a lot about striking and major redundancies in it. Also about people moving "out of Liverpool" into the "country" ( Skelmersdale ), in order to provide better housing and better prospects for everyone. The social climate of the working class appears to highlight the differences between working and middle classes. The contrasts between the personalities and characters of Miss Johnstone and Mrs. Lyons are clearly shown throughout the play but these characteristics are mirrored within where each character resides. There is a clear and distinct line between the two social worlds is obvious as Miss Johnstone and Mrs. Lyons are shown to live at opposite ends of the social scale, Mrs. Lyons in a respectable area with everything money can buy, and Miss Johnstone in a rundown semi on a council estate. This becomes even clearer when Mickey says "up in the park" which seems to suggest that it is above the Johnstone's status and that it is attractive and open in comparison to the estate. It also seems that neither parent wanted their children mixing with each other and also seemingly, boys from a different social class. Mrs. Lyons states "You see why I don't want you mixing
The novel
The novel "The Outsiders" was written by the American writer S. E. Hinton in 1967. At that time, everyone thought this was a remarkable effort, since Hinton was only seventeen years old at the time of publishing. The book revolves around a gang called Greasers, situated in an American suburb some time during the 50s or the 60s. The Greasers are constantly quarrelling with another gang called the Socs. Socs is short for socialists, and they are the successful, rich kids, whereas the Greasers are from the poor part of the town. For some reason, the Greasers and the Socs dislike each other intensely, and to solve conflicts, the two gangs frequently have fistfights. The book's main character is Ponyboy Curtis - a 14-year-old boy, whose parents perished in a car accident, forcing him and his two brothers Sodapop and Darry to paddle their own canoe. The three brothers live alone in a house in very poor state of repair. Apparently, Ponyboy's two older brothers Sodapop and Darry have great impact on him. Ponyboy obviously rates family values highly, and when things don't work out like he would want them to, he often turns to Johnny Cage in despair. Johnny neither has an easy time at home; his parents neglect him. In the beginning of the book, Ponyboy doesn't feel like he knows his oldest brother Darry completely, but as the plot progresses, it seems like his personal feelings
The Evaluative phase - Blood brothers.
Blood Brothers is a play about twin brothers who where separated at birth, both families are different class family's. Mickey is from a poor working class family, who is seen to be a troublemaker at school and Edward is from a rich upper class family. Who does well at school and goes to university. The brothers end up meeting during there childhood and grow up together. But when they find out the truth them being brothers it all comes to a bloody end. Within the story there are many other issues. The story shows issues between classes, I think that it is an important issue to show as even in today's society we still have issues with class. They play write shows these issues like when the boys were caught be the police vandalising some windows, The police officer laid all the blame on Mickey who happens to came from the lower class family. He talks to them as if they weren't worth anything and he was very rude. But when he talks to Edwards family the policeman is very different, he is polite and tells the parents of Edward that it is Mickey who was leading him astray even though it was Edward that was being cheeky to the policeman. The set was set out as a poor council estate on one side and the rich upper class house on the other side, it fit in well to the direction and acting as on the council estate the speech was improper and all in slang also the area look
In our workshop on Blood Brothers we used many of the explorative strategies in order to help us understand how the characters were feeling at different times during the play.
Jack Franks (11v1) GCSE DRAMA (1699) PAPER 1, UNIT 2 PORTFOLIO TASK 1 (AO1) - RESPONSE In our workshop on Blood Brothers we used many of the explorative strategies in order to help us understand how the characters were feeling at different times during the play. It also helped us to get in role to play a certain person. We worked a lot in our workshops on the scene where Linda hides Mickey's drugs to stop him from taking them and we used these methods to get a better understanding of how both Linda and Mickey would be feeling in this situation. We would usually perform the scene and then use the explorative strategies within it. For instance during the drug scene, anybody could call freeze and the people on stage would then stop, creating a 'still image', then the people in the audience are free to hot-seat the characters, asking them questions about how they are feeling themselves and their feelings towards the other person in the scene. This was very useful as it helped us to build upon the characters we were playing. Actually saying how we were feeling as that character would then help us to physically incorporate those feelings into the scene. We used thought tracking in our workshop. Throughout the scene we would stop and create a still image a number of times, then one or more of the characters would improvise and say what was going through their mind at that time.