Evaluation of Blood Brothers, by Willy Russell

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Blood Brothers Evaluation We went to see the play, 'Blood Brothers' at the local Theatre. I expected the play to be very emotional and sad, from the reviews that my friends had given me. The plot of the story is that there are two twins and they are separated at birth. As the mother has 7 other children to look after and is the only person in the house who earns money, she cannot afford to keep them both. After much persuasion she gives one away to her employer, Mrs Lyons, a woman who is rich but unable to have any children of her own. The twin who is given away grows up in a middle class household and the other twin who is kept grows up in a working class household. They become best friends 'blood brothers' without knowing they are related and the play ends tragically with the death of both twins. The play clearly shows us the differences in their upbringing and status. The stage helps show the difference between their statuses because it separated into 2 halves. The side on the left (from the audience's left) is the poorer side, and the set shows walls with graffiti on and smaller houses. The right side has bigger houses with nicer gardens. The audience can tell that the Lyons are of higher status because the set shows their house on the right side of the stage, and usually the further right you are the higher your status. When the cast moved the props around it sped up the tempo of the play because the set kept changing. This kept the audience interested in the play. Also they didn't stop singing or acting just to move the props, they did it all at the same time. This made it less noticeable that they moving things ... ... middle of paper ... ...- 13, 14- wore short skirts and looked quite tarty, showing her as a confident forward young girl. Later on when she becomes pregnant her hair is all drawn back and her clothes look a lot older than her age. The audience can tell from her appearance that she is tired and is finding it hard to cope. Edward clothes don't change that much and when he grows up he's happy and goes to university and his life is quite luxurious. When Mickey meets Edward after prison and in prison he says that Edward's had an easy life and doesn't know what it is like to struggle. Mickey doesn't accept Edward's money and the audience can tell that he is too proud to accept help from Edward. Mickey ended up suffering from depression, like many people from the working class background, as there was high unemployment in North London in the 1970s.

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