Willy Russell's Blood Brothers - The Grand Theatre Leeds.
Willy Russell's Blood Brothers.
The Grand Theatre Leeds
The set design for Blood Brothers was very effective and set the scene really well at the beginning of the performance. The props which were on stage at the beginning were; props designed to look like houses, these were particularly effective because they were realistic in the way that they were quite old and looked like they were old dishevelled council houses. They portrayed the image of the rough area that was 1960's Liverpool. There were two rows of houses of about three and these were both situated at an angle on the far side of stage left and stage right. As the backdrop of the design a city style painting was used and in front of this was a bridge. Through the railings on the bridge you could seethe city backdrop. The set design was very detailed, the houses looked extremely real and the bridge, covered in graffiti really looked as though it was from Liverpool in the 1960's. The set design for the Lyons house was very effective because it was fairly simple (often only had the table as the piece of furniture) and this helped it look like the large house it was by creating space.
When Eddie, Mickey and Linda are seventeen they go into town, the setting for the town is changed by putting a lamp post on set. This is effective and makes the set look like a town area.
The lighting used throughout the play was amazingly effective, lighting brought emotion to the scenes which, without the lighting there, would not have been so moving. Fairy lights were used at the beginning on the top of the city backdrop these created a city atmosphere as they looked like lots of lights from the houses that you would see from the view. From this lighting and backdrop you got the feel that it was a very busy area and nothing like the countryside. The general lighting used when the children were playing was quite false light and looked a lot darker than the lighting which was used when the families moved to the countryside. This helped create the image of the city being cramped and miserable and the contrast to the countryside, which was sunny and free. The lights were a lot darker too when the children were playing outside, however, the lights were extremely bright when the audience was watching inside Mrs Lyons house. The lighting, being very bright also exaggerated how big Mrs Lyons house actually was because like the set design of it, it helped create space. The bright even light made it look grand. The red light at the very beginning is very effective, because, as the play starts with the end it is very ambiguous and the red light helps with the sense of confusion. It represents blood:
* the blood that was shed in the deaths
* the blood that was shared because they were twins
* the blood brothers
Another very effective time when the red light was used is when the tension is being built up between Mickey and Linda. For about five minutes of the play the audience try to dissuade themselves that Eddie and Linda will not fall in love, however the flirting becomes more often and no matter how much you don't want it to happen it is inevitable that it will. We see Linda and Eddie meet and they run to greet each other and as soon as they touch the red light fills the whole stage, as though the whole relationship between Mickey and Eddie, the blood brothers, has been broken and it creates the image of blood filling the theatre. The light here creates the feeling of tragedy and deceit.
Towards the end of the play when Mickey was in depression and all the happiness was gradually going, the lighting also became more and more gloomy and morbid. There was rarely ever a full brightly lit stage after Eddie and Mickey had fallen out. Because the actors and the lighting were so good together it made the audience feel depressed.
The music throughout the musical was what made it so effective in my opinion. The first song , overture, is played when the twins are being placed in the body bags and being taken away, this is only a piece of music based on long very low notes, however it has low moaning voices in the background which sound very scary and unnerving and add to the feeling of ambiguity at this point. The second song, Marilyn Monroe, portrays the character of Mrs Johnston; it shows that she is very naïve, the song from the beginning talks about her obsession with Marilyn Monroe; this is because she wants to be beautiful just like her. Marilyn is mentioned in the play several times, this is because the story line is similar to Monroe's life, she led a happy life but was always aspiring to be more liked and more popular, she got hooked on drugs and fell into depression and then, like Mickey she died. Many of the songs are repeated towards the end of the performance however they are slowed down and the words are changed. The song 'Kid's Game' helps portray the actors as young as possible and makes it more realistic. 'I got y' I shot y' and y' bloody know I did, these words are shouted, rather than sang, in a very young voice, the music is also very simple here.
The narrator's singing creates atmosphere in all of his songs however in 'shoes upon the table' the words the narrator sings makes us think that he is someone inside Mrs Lyons' and Mrs Johnston's head. The song is all about suspicion and what will happen to the two twins when they're older. The start of this song starts with really slow beats there are six beats and they create a creepy Atmosphere, this music carries on through the part of the dialogue when Mrs Lyons says "you do know what happens to twins that are secretly parted don't ...
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The narrator's singing creates atmosphere in all of his songs however in 'shoes upon the table' the words the narrator sings makes us think that he is someone inside Mrs Lyons' and Mrs Johnston's head. The song is all about suspicion and what will happen to the two twins when they're older. The start of this song starts with really slow beats there are six beats and they create a creepy Atmosphere, this music carries on through the part of the dialogue when Mrs Lyons says "you do know what happens to twins that are secretly parted don't you?" she then carries on explaining what will happen if either of the twins find out they were separated, the n she finishes by saying (to Mrs Johnston) "you won't tell anyone about this Mrs Johnston, if you do you will kill them!" As soon as she says this the narrator sings "shoes upon the table, an a spiders been killed....etc". The music here is sudden and precise and it makes you feel on edge and engaged in the feeling of what he is saying.
Sound effects are used occasionally in the play e.g. when Mickey is looking for Eddie he shouts for him and sound effects are used to make it sound like ,him shouting 'Eddie', is echoing. When he is shouting it builds up tension in the audience because it makes you think that Eddie has gone away, you feel empathy for Mickey.
The gauze at the beginning of the play looked very mysterious because the red light was shone upon it from the top up stage right and this, from where I was sat in the audience, made you feel intimidated because it was so bright.
The costume in Blood brothers was a major part of the performance for me. The costumes were not only what people wore they were symbols of the life that they lived.
Mickey's costumes assisted his acting from the very start. The first time we see him on stage he is wearing a filthy, green, baggy, t-shirt. He is wearing some really old denim shorts, and some basketball style bright red trainers. His costume looks like it is actually years old, not just been filthied with stage make-up etc. His costume is very bright and cheerful. He looks lie most of the other children he is playing with. They all appear to make a fun loving, bright carefree picture without even moving. The costume Mickey wears portrays his age well, he has dirt on the knees, elbows and face, like a seven year old would . His t-shirt is dirtiest at the bottom where it has been tugged and pulled at. It has also gone baggy where he pulls it over his knees.
Mickey's clothing as a teenager changes rapidly. Before he wore what was given to him (by his on stage mum) however, as a teenager he has more pride and self-consciousness . At around the age of fourteen he wears fitted tight jeans and white t-shirts and hair slicked back with gel. His pristine image costume helps portray his stereotyped 1960's teenager, drainpipe jeans and white t-shirts.
When Mickey gets into trouble with police and goes to prison he is a totally different person as far as dress sense is concerned. The colours change from bright clean colours to miserable brown and greys. His clothes are extremely loose and convey his feelings of wanting to be hidden.
Linda's clothes at the beginning are bright and cheerful like Mickey's. She is wearing a red dress and cardigan, these are very clean, and however this will be down to her mother keeping them clean as she was a bit of a 'tom boy'. She wore her hair in pigtails and frilly ankle socks. Again, like Mickey, she looked very young. Her materials on her clothes were very smooth; her skirt was very plain and red. Like blood. In all of Linda's costumes she wore an item of red. This represented and symbolised the blood all the way through. It represented that Linda was the thing which linked Eddie and Mickey together, as a child and as adults. Even though Linda was young her outfit as a child was very feminine and elegant. As a teenager the respective clothing image had gone. She wore a very short skirt and stiletto heels, this made her look much more vulnerable, and her school shirt was often unbuttoned revealing her teenage chest. She still wore a red bobble in her hair though and her school bag had a red trim on. The amount of red worn was decreasing and this symbolised the blood- brother- hood, too, getting weaker. When Linda went out on a night as a teenager she was, like Mickey, very self conscious, she wore make-up (red lipstick) and platform heels and miniskirt.
At 18 Linda wore much less vulnerable clothing. She wore a pale yellow dress with a red ribbon in her hair. The pale yellow represented her happiness at that time, she no longer had to wear tarty clothes to catch Mickey's attention she already had it, she could be comfortable in what she wanted, they were in love.
When Linda and Mickey's relationship is at its weakest Linda wears fairly miserable clothes compared to her old, flirtatious, bright colours, she wears dull colours e.g. a brown jumper.
The first scene when Mickey and Linda are together is when all of the children are on scene and Mickey says the 'f word'. All of the children are shouting at him saying that he will go to hell. Linda chooses to stick up for him above all of the rest of them. Linda has great confidence here, even though she is only 7 she sticks her chest right out and puts her arms out to protect Mickey when he is being picked on by his brother Sammy.
Mickey doesn't have an issue about a girl sticking up for him which, because his acting skills are good here, portrays their age really well. Mickey uses his voice skills to convey his age well. Mickey-actor Sean Jones - is actually from North Wales so his accent is totally different, he has to learn the Liverpool accent, he talks in a much higher voice to sound like Mickey does and has to talk with more versatile tones than he would normally. Seven year old tend to make their voices higher and lower to make everything they say have more impact on the listener and be exaggerated. Children often talk faster than adults do and without as many pauses for breaths, Mickey carried this off well and he used these skills very effectively to make you believe he was 7, not an actor pretending to be someone who is 7.Mickey has a lot of respect for his brother Sammy and idolises him. He copies a lot of the actions his brother does. He tries to stand with his feet wide apart and sit in his hips to make him look relaxed like Sammy however it is clear that he is trying to copy Sammy as whenever he copies his characteristics he looks round to see if anyone is noticing him! Mickey is very hyperactive and this is clear by the way he jumps around the stage instead of walking and is also showed by the speed at which he talks. He is very enthusiastic here, when he is shooting the group of children he is really exaggerating every single movement.
Linda is a lot less shy though than Mickey, she has a motherly element to her which shows that she feels she has to take care for Mickey. Throughout her childhood we get the impression that inside her the strength and confidence she has inside her is fighting against the feminist and young girl inside her. Linda is different to the typical 1960's girl; she didn't fall into the typical quiet, plain, young girl trap like the rest of those her age did. Linda as a child is very excitable and active. She is dressed up (by her mother) in a very feminine way, however, she was a real tom boy inside. She carried on in everyday life things such as sitting down, as if she was a boy, legs wide open and crossed, as if unaware of the fact she was revealing her knickers to boys.
On this scene when Linda is sticking up for him, they treat each other as the same sex, they are all the same as far as they are concerned, and they are totally oblivious to the world around them.
Another scene when they are together is the scene when Mickey introduces Edie to Linda. They are all sat playing shooting with the guns. They are all extremely imaginative as they believe there are really shooting things. The three children are sat in the corner of downstage right, they are situate here so it makes them look smaller than they actually are because there is all the space around them compared to the amount of space used when the adults are on the stage. Here the relationship between Linda and Mickey is at its strongest. Linda hits the target every time, whereas Mickey misses, he doesn't show that he is jealous though. She laughs like a boy here, she feels completely at ease with him. Linda-Nikki Davis Jones-portrays the age of Linda very well here by shoeing the amount of concentration on her face when she is shooting, she is totally engrossed in her target. The relationship between Mickey and Linda is very close at this age and Mickey is not afraid to show his affections towards Linda or his mum. He doesn't think about his affections though, they are what come naturally to him; he loves to get excited and jump around. E.g. when Mickey bends over Linda to get the gun off Eddie he leans on her, whereas soon when he is a teenager he would never get as close to her as that without feeling embarrassed.
The way Linda laughs when she wins shows the lack of problems and stress they had in between the relationship at that age, she is laughing with happiness and such an open body line, she has nothing on her mind. She has a lot of respect for Mickey but different to the respect he has for his brother, in the way that Linda laughs , flinging her head back as she does, she sees her self as equal to him, and would not get embarrasses in front of him.
As teenagers Linda and Mickey are totally different. In the scene on the stile Linda is much more psychological, she thinks about her movements and what reactions they might have on Mickey. She is very flirtatious whereas Mickey is the shyest we have seen him in the whole play. Linda is stood astride on the stile; she is wearing her extremely short school skirt with her shirt buttons undone at the top. This outfit alone makes her look a lot older than she is (14) not because the actress is older but because her body language too is very different to hers as a child. When she talks to Mickey she tends to move forward from the waist as she speaks, revealing the space between her bra and her shirt. She intends to flaunt this to Mickey and his reactions are the total opposite of Linda's body language. He looks away and has his body on an angle to hers. He is embarrassed at the position she puts him in. Linda lets her hair down; she thinks that this will make her appear sexier. She is very impulsive here and doesn't seem to get embarrassed at all. She is much more sexually aware than Mickey and she thinks he's playing hard to get but really, he just thinks she's weird. Mickey's eye contact is very flickery and he doesn't actually look her in the eye very often. Her eye contact is very intimidating, her whole body level is a lot higher than him (because she is stood on the stile) and therefore she is looking down on him, making him feel small, her eye contact is fixed though in his eyes. She speaks in a slow provocative voice. When she deliberately gets stuck on the stile Mickey feels unsure what to do about this. She asks him for his help, she even says this sexily her knowing that he will feel uncomfortable about being so close to a girl wearing such a short skirt. He walks over and helps her and she presses her body close to him. Her eyes are still intensely looking upon him, he is aware that she is trying to flirt with hi but he is unsure how to react to it. He doesn't smile at all through this scene he tends to keep a straight face throughout but, making it obvious that something else is going on in his troubled mind.
Linda and Mickey are almost at the end of the play, during the scene where Linda is trying to stop Mickey from taking his pills: In this scene both actors portray their complete change in characters well. Mickey has lost all pride in him self, he can barely look at Linda. They argue, this is a complete shock to the audience because you have seen them grown up from the age of 7 and yet you have never seen them argue. They have always stuck by each other. Linda is still behind Mickey but he is not the same anymore. Since Mickey got out of prison he had to take anti-depressants. Mickey has lost a lot of things, as a child he lost his dad. That is not something which has been an issue in the rest of the play. AS a child he lost his twin, he does not know about this but it makes the audience feel for him as all his life he has lost thinks. He lost his job, this made him become very cynical about life and be annoyed with Eddie his blood brother, this was the start where everything went wring. He had been made to grow up too fast, he had needed to, and he was annoyed with envy that Eddie was having such a good life. This showed tragic irony because; if his mother had have given him away he would have been in Eddies position not leading the terrible life he was now. His brother Sammy was his idol; right from the very beginning he looked up to him and loved him. He thought that Sammy was perfect from the beginning, but gradually, especially in the teenage section, he realised that Sammy was street- cred but was not who he wanted to be. Recently Mickey had been put under emotional blackmail from his brother; he didn't want to grass his brother in to the police because his brother got himself into trouble trying to help him. He had that dilemma on his mind. The weights of these problems and losses on his mind were conveyed amazingly in the "pills" scene. Mickey was pale; he looked several years older than he actually was. He was stooped over at the shoulders and wore brown baggy jumpers, trying to hide him. He lacked confidence because of his poor stance. Before he would stand tall and from the age of 17+ he was very open to Linda in a sexual way. Now they were so different he barely looked at her because he knew that he had given up on his life and felt ashamed that he had. When Linda was shouting at Mickey the tension felt was so intense because their body language was so private to themselves. This scene was the most emotional moment in the play for me because everything had gone wrong. You could see the frustration in Linda's face, she was frowning as she was shouting, she loved him and she had to watch her husband making a mess of his life because of the drugs. The voice skills the actor used here were brilliant; he talked in a monotone voice rather than Mickey's usual exciting voice. He also twitched which Mickey never did before; this showed what the drugs had done to him. All of the facial expressions and vocal skills were very subtle yet effective.
The relationships between Linda and Mickey changed throughout the play; at the beginning they were extremely relaxed, fun, carefree, and full of life. AS teenagers they came to have more issues on their mind e.g. school life, one another, but they still kept the fun, and liveliness they'd had as a child. As young adults they had been forced to grow up as quickly as they did because they had to get married because Linda was pregnant. Because they had been forced to grow up like they did, they were face with more problems. Mickey's facial expressions throughout the play were the key to the audience believing whatever age he was, as a child they were much more impulsive and cheeky, as an a teenager he often looked embarrassed, and as an adult he looked extremely miserable, and stress ridden.
Mickey and Linda both played their ages perfectly throughout the play and this were showed through their detailed voice skills, movement, facial expressions, and characteristics which ran through each scene.
Willy Russell wrote this musical in a very witty and intelligent way. I noticed that in the beginning of the play there was a lot of humour, especially in the scenes between Linda Eddie and Mickey. The humour was used in ways which would show Eddie's up bringing to be very different to Linda and Mickey's.
