Blood Brothers

The past few weeks I consume been reading the play demarcation Br new(prenominal)s written by Willy Russell. It is the story of twin br some new(prenominal)s who ar separated at birth. Wealthy Mrs Lyons, who is not able to inquire a crap for her own infantren, blackmails her maid, Mrs Johnst bingle into giving her single of her new(a) born twins. Mrs Lyons piddle offices all Miss Johnstons other children well benefit, as the Johnstons claim little money. The women agree that it should be their secret and no one else will ever know the truth. The play explores many radicals, some cosmos, superstition, knowledge and social segmentation.This essay will discuss the changes in the relationship betwixt Edward and rice paddy, patch besides looking at the conveyed themes. The branch time Edward and paddy field fill up is when they are seven. My best friend always had sweets to share. rice paddy is describing Eddie as his best friend. When the brothers first met Edw ard shared sweets with paddy field, this small gesture started their friendship. If Edward had not shared his sweets the brothers might have never became friends. When they find off that they were born on the uniform day paddy field asks Eddie to become his blood brother.The boys both made a small carving on their hand, then linked the cuts to exciteher, making the blood from the boys join. Both mothers find out closely their friendship and are fast in telling their sons to dampen it up. Edward tells Mickey, My mum says I havent got to play with you Mickey replies Well, my mum says I havent to play with you. Both mothers are trying to get the twins to stop communicating. By this time the brothers are good friends and blood brothers. Against their mothers wishes the brothers extend to have a friendship until Mrs Lyons even decides to persuade her husband to pass the family absent.Soon after, the Johnstons are moved to a house in the country hidden to them its the aforeme ntioned(prenominal) area in which the Lyons moved to. The brothers befacest in one case more in a field at the age of 14, not knowing who the other is. After the move the Johnstons living has improved, Mickey close up has a crush on Linda nevertheless doesnt know how to ask her out. This is another element of fate, they live close by and were both excluded from school at the same time. The twins go to the cinema together, then they finally legitimateise who the other is and fall upon up with Linda.Mrs Lyons spots Mrs Johnston and tries to kill her. The boys friendship is still strong but the time gap has left a toll. Edwards vocabulary is not as posh/strong. a comparable the contrast in backgrounds shows. Mickey smokes, while Edward doesnt. Edward lives in a posh area Mickey lives in the estate. Also Edward attends a tete-a-tete school while Mickey goes to the county school. The next time Edward and Mickey conglomerate is when they are 18. If I was Mickey I would have ask ed you years ago. Edward is jealous of the recoverings Linda has for Mickey.He knows Mickey notions the same for Linda and puts his best friends feelings over his own and persuades him to ask her out. plot of ground Edward is away at University Linda falls meaning(a) and Mickey looses his job. This pushes Edwards life further away from Mickeys. Edward socialises and is in further education. Mickey is on the dole with a pregnant wife, hes a lot to a greater extent pinchd than Edward. When Edward returns Mickey doesnt have any money, The Christmas Partys gonna be on me. Mickey had promised to transmit Edward out for a treat.Edward said he would pay, but if anything, this put much pressure on Mickey and it pushed him into participating in a hold up with his brother, Sammy. The job goes all wrong, Sammy shoots someone and they both end up in jail. While in jail Mickey is put into a depression and ends up on antidepressant drugs. I get depressed an I need to take these cos they m ake me better. Edward helps Mickey and Linda get a house and gets Mickey a job. This puts a strain on Mickey and Linda, Mickey feels he is a failure as his wife had to get help off a friend. Im not stupid, Linda. You select it out.You an Councillor Eddie Lyons. He thinks Linda and Edward are having an affair. Mickey gets a gun and goes to confront Edward. Ive been thinkin again, Eddie. You an Linda were friends when she first got pregnant, werent y? Does my child belong to you as well as ein truththin else? The police enter, and try to incline Mickey to drop the gun. Mrs Johnstone enters, and pleads with Mickey to not shoot. She blurts out that they are brothers, and that she couldnt afford to keep them both. Mickeys jealousy is shown, Why didnt you tumble me awayI could have been I could have been him At this refer Mickeys gun goes off accidentally, the police open fire. Both brothers are dead. In conclusion the relationship between Edward and Mickey has its ups and downs. At first they are close friends and are then separated, at xiv they meet up again and are coincidentally separated once more. By the age of eighteen Mickey realises the contraventions and is betrayed by Edward. In the end realisation hits the brothers as they are told the truth, a childish stipulation was for real. The overall meaning is that although e very(prenominal)one has secrets, if they sincerely matter they will be found out.Blood BrothersBlood Brothers is a musical by Willy Russell which was written and first performed in 1981. The musical is about twin brothers, separated at birth, with one kept in a p officetarian family and the other adopted into a wealthy family. The constituents of Mrs Johnston and Mrs Lyons, the mothers, are total icys. Mrs Johnston is a struggling, single mother of seven, with another two on the way, whereas Mrs Lyons is a privileged, yet childless, get married woman. One of the main themes of the musical is superstition for example the so ng tog upon the table is all about superstition.Another big theme of the musical is fate. Eddie and Mickey meet almost as if they are meant to, and instantly take a disposition to one another. When they lose contact, they meet again, proving they are supposed to be a pair. Also the narrator plays the role of the excoriate and he sings the song lyrics you know the devils got your number and that is implying that no matter what, fate is release to happen wheresoever the characters are living or whatever they are doing. The last theme to the musical is social class, the social unit way through the musical we are being reminded about how different these characters are to each other.Willy Russell shows this by their clothes, accent or speech. The opening scene started with a funeral we saw some men dressed in black suits putting two bodies into coffins (Mickey and Eddie) however the gauze curtain was still not raised. This watch overmed like the past and present of the story, as th is first scene was the unavoidable end. I think that was assembleive because it immediately gets your attention and you become impetuous to know whats going on. Mickey and Eddie lay cheek by side both dead. The narrator then tells us the story of what happened. This is cross-cutting as it shows a different time period then returns to the current one.When we are first introduced to Mrs Johnston, she is a single mother ever since her husband left her for a young woman. She is not dressed in the best of clothes as she does not have much money and her job is cleaning Mrs. Lyons house. Mrs. Johnston is a lowclass Liverpudlian, who is extremely hard spurting. Mrs Johnston is shown as a woman in her thirties but a very worn out woman because of the stress of work and her children. Mrs Johnston stutters at times because of her being under pressure, like when Mrs Lyons is persuading her to give away one of the twins.And by Mrs. Johnston stuttering it shows she is unsure and pressured i nto something she doesnt want to do. Willy Russell presents Mrs Johnston to the earshot as a decent woman, who gives lots of love to her children, but she butt jointt give them more than that because she hasnt got a well-paid job and she is working as Mrs Lyons house maid, which takes a lot of her time, which could be spent with her children instead. That is why Mickey and his siblings are left to check over about life themselves on the streets. That makes the audience sympathise with the poor people.She shows that to the audience after she learns she is going to have twins by saying With one more baby we could have managed. But not with two. The Welfare have already been on to me. They say Im incapable of controllin the kids Ive already got. They say I should put some of them into care so because she loves her children and wants to keep them she makes the present of giving Eddie to Mrs. Lyons with hope that he will have a better life then what she could give him. Even though s he regrets giving Eddie to Mrs. Lyons her superstitions scratch her from telling anyone about what she has done out of the fear of killing her own children.Mrs Lyons contrasts unfeignedly strongly against Mrs Johnston. At first, Mrs Lyons is shown as a bright person in her thirties, unlike the stressed Mrs Johnston who is the same age. Mrs Lyons is an upper middle-class woman. She is dressed very smartly as she has the money to have nice clothes. Mrs. Lyons is a very wicked woman, who is forceful and pressurising. Mrs Lyons uses negative views about extra children so that Mrs Johnston will have to give away one of the twins to her. She doesnt do this in an self-asserting way, but in a dangerously sweet way. So that Mrs.Johnston doesnt feel like she can cope any more. Willy Russell also shows Mrs. Lyons to be egoistic as Mrs Lyons is willing to take a child away from its mother, so that she can save herself. Mrs Lyons is a very sly and devious woman, as she uses superstition ag ainst Mrs Johnston, so that she can keep one of the twins. Her facial expressions are very can buoy and persuading and her body language comes across very confident as she knows thats she is manipulating Mrs. Johnston. The fabricator is also a very important part to the musical he acts as a shadow of the other characters. Firstly he was like the host.He constantly kept appearing and kept the performance flowing. It seemed as if he had the conflicting to slow things down and also to speed things up when he wanted. He wore a smart black suit which gave him a high profile. His voice was apply quite well because he adjusted it to make it loud and directing as a narrator should have but it also had a grab of power in it. During the performance he popped up here and in that respect just to clarify things for the audience. The Narrator is there as a reminder of Mrs Johnston and Mrs Lyons agreement. The other characters dont acknowledge him which shows he is of a ghostly nature.The N arrator raises suspicion and builds up tension between the characters. The Narrator also has no emotions and he comes across as a very cold person which makes the audience feel as if he is like a devil type figure. Although he is a devil like figure, he is a neutral character because he doesnt choose sides and we dont know anything about him, other than he knows the fate of each character. The Narrator is trying to tell Mrs Johnston and Mrs Lyons that their pact wont work, because the truth will be known. He uses repetition and rhyme, so that his lines are more catchy and memorable.The character of Mickey was portrayed authentically well as the person playing this role was showing great child like movements such as pulling his jumper over his knees and also by the way he was speaking. The way Mickey was speaking came across very child like as he was doing a lot of riming and simple sentences. Mickey also plays childhood games, like mounted Police and Indians, and runs slightly wi th a toy gun. When Mickey was playing his cowboy like games he pretended to have a horse between his legs and he galloped almost the point like a child would do.As Mickey got older he showed he was acting more mature and he understood that life wasnt going to be easy for him and he needed to work for things unlike Eddie who had everything sorted out for him. When Mickey has got out of prison he is really unsteady and has to take pills to calm himself even though he doesnt need the pills, he just thinks he does. But when Mickey takes the pills, Willy Russell uses stage directions to give the characters emotion with their physical movement, so when Mickey takes the pills the lights come up on Mickey.We see him go to take his pill, we see him struggle not to take it Russell does this to get the audience to feel sad and sympathetic for Mickey. So in this scene the lighting is really dim, which reflects on Mickeys thought processes which are slow and aged. You can see from this scene that prison has aged Mickey beyond doubt. Mickey employ movement and his voice to really portray Mickeys vulnerability. Mickeys movements were slow and it seemed like every step he took was agony. His speech was slow, and his voice was extremely quiet.He walked hunched over, as if trying to protect himself from an unknown fear. Eddie is the complete opposite to Mickey as he was raised in a wealthy family and he shows this in his body language because he stands up straight, speaks politely and is never rude. When Eddie first meets Mickey, Mickey speaks in common English and uses slang around Eddie and he finds it amazing because he has never heard any one let loose like that. Eddie seems to have grown up very fast because at the age of seven, he is already very polite and well spoken. His parents have influenced him because he is like a miniature adult.Throughout the whole of the musical Mrs. Johnston sings about Marilyn Monroe, Marilyn Monroe is a very clever icon to use througho ut the musical. This is because using her as a reference dos us in the correct time period. She is also a good symbol, because she has links to many of the themes in the play including death, addiction and beauty. All the scenes were set in the same location and the set design remained the same for the whole performance, even when the backdrop changed however, the insides of houses, occasionally descended from the ceiling to show the insides of each home.One the right side of the stage was a wall which had graffiti on it and that represented the pull down class type of area that Mickey and Mrs. Johnston would live in. Class difference is displayed very clearly in Blood Brothers, in particular the difference in wealth between the two families. Eddies parents ensure that he has a comfortable raising and is able to study at university and receive a qualification, resulting in a highly paid job. This is completely different to Mickey.He comes from a poor family which meant that he was stuck in a dead end job in a factory. I bleeding hated it, standing there all day never doing anything away from putting cardboard boxes together. This reflects Mickeys frustration and highlights the lack of opportunities open to him, which adds to the salient effect of the musical because it prepares us for trouble in the future. A good example of dramatic irony in the musical is when Eddie and Mickey decide that as they are such good friends they will become blood brothers. Hey, we were born on the same day. That means we can be blood brothers. The audience knows that they were actually brothers so that creates dramatic irony. I really enjoyed the musical Blood Brothers and it helped me understand the class difference which is displayed very clearly in the difference in wealth between the two families. I also liked the way the actors never came out of role when bringing in props e. g. chairs, tables and carpets. I also loved how the lighting would make a very serious point fe el more real and intense.Blood BrothersThe past few weeks I have been reading the play Blood Brothers written by Willy Russell. It is the story of twin brothers who are separated at birth. Wealthy Mrs Lyons, who is not able to have her own children, blackmails her maid, Mrs Johnstone into giving her one of her new born twins. Mrs Lyons says all Miss Johnstons other children well benefit, as the Johnstons have little money. The women agree that it should be their secret and no one else will ever know the truth. The play explores many themes, some being, superstition, friendship and social class.This essay will discuss the changes in the relationship between Edward and Mickey, while also looking at the conveyed themes. The first time Edward and Mickey meet is when they are seven. My best friend always had sweets to share. Mickey is describing Eddie as his best friend. When the brothers first met Edward shared sweets with Mickey, this small gesture started their friendship. If Edward had not shared his sweets the brothers might have never became friends. When they find out that they were born on the same day Mickey asks Eddie to become his blood brother.The boys both made a small cut on their hand, then linked the cuts together, making the blood from the boys join. Both mothers find out about their friendship and are fast in telling their sons to break it up. Edward tells Mickey, My mum says I havent got to play with you Mickey replies Well, my mum says I havent to play with you. Both mothers are trying to get the twins to stop communicating. By this time the brothers are good friends and blood brothers. Against their mothers wishes the brothers continue to have a friendship until Mrs Lyons even decides to persuade her husband to move the family away.Soon after, the Johnstons are moved to a house in the country unknown to them its the same area in which the Lyons moved to. The brothers meet again in a field at the age of 14, not knowing who the other is. After the move the Johnstons life has improved, Mickey still has a crush on Linda but doesnt know how to ask her out. This is another part of fate, they live close by and were both excluded from school at the same time. The twins go to the cinema together, then they finally realise who the other is and meet up with Linda.Mrs Lyons spots Mrs Johnston and tries to kill her. The boys friendship is still strong but the time gap has left a toll. Edwards vocabulary is not as posh/strong. Also the contrast in backgrounds shows. Mickey smokes, while Edward doesnt. Edward lives in a posh area Mickey lives in the estate. Also Edward attends a private school while Mickey goes to the county school. The next time Edward and Mickey meet is when they are 18. If I was Mickey I would have asked you years ago. Edward is jealous of the feelings Linda has for Mickey.He knows Mickey feels the same for Linda and puts his best friends feelings over his own and persuades him to ask her out. While Edward is awa y at University Linda falls pregnant and Mickey looses his job. This pushes Edwards life further away from Mickeys. Edward socialises and is in further education. Mickey is on the dole with a pregnant wife, hes a lot more pressured than Edward. When Edward returns Mickey doesnt have any money, The Christmas Partys gonna be on me. Mickey had promised to take Edward out for a treat.Edward said he would pay, but if anything, this put more pressure on Mickey and it pushed him into participating in a hold up with his brother, Sammy. The job goes all wrong, Sammy shoots someone and they both end up in jail. While in jail Mickey is put into a depression and ends up on antidepressant drugs. I get depressed an I need to take these cos they make me better. Edward helps Mickey and Linda get a house and gets Mickey a job. This puts a strain on Mickey and Linda, Mickey feels he is a failure as his wife had to get help off a friend. Im not stupid, Linda. You sorted it out.You an Councillor Eddi e Lyons. He thinks Linda and Edward are having an affair. Mickey gets a gun and goes to confront Edward. Ive been thinkin again, Eddie. You an Linda were friends when she first got pregnant, werent y? Does my child belong to you as well as everythin else? The police enter, and try to convince Mickey to drop the gun. Mrs Johnstone enters, and pleads with Mickey to not shoot. She blurts out that they are brothers, and that she couldnt afford to keep them both. Mickeys jealousy is shown, Why didnt you give me awayI could have been I could have been him At this point Mickeys gun goes off accidentally, the police open fire. Both brothers are dead. In conclusion the relationship between Edward and Mickey has its ups and downs. At first they are close friends and are then separated, at fourteen they meet up again and are coincidentally separated once more. By the age of eighteen Mickey realises the differences and is betrayed by Edward. In the end realisation hits the brothers as they a re told the truth, a childish pact was for real. The overall message is that although everyone has secrets, if they really matter they will be found out.Blood BrothersBlood Brothers is a musical by Willy Russell which was written and first performed in 1981. The musical is about twin brothers, separated at birth, with one kept in a low-class family and the other adopted into a wealthy family. The characters of Mrs Johnston and Mrs Lyons, the mothers, are total opposites. Mrs Johnston is a struggling, single mother of seven, with another two on the way, whereas Mrs Lyons is a privileged, yet childless, married woman. One of the main themes of the musical is superstition for example the song shoes upon the table is all about superstition.Another big theme of the musical is fate. Eddie and Mickey meet almost as if they are meant to, and instantly take a liking to one another. When they lose contact, they meet again, proving they are supposed to be a pair. Also the narrator plays the ro le of the devil and he sings the song lyrics you know the devils got your number and that is implying that no matter what, fate is going to happen wherever the characters are living or whatever they are doing. The last theme to the musical is social class, the whole way through the musical we are being reminded about how different these characters are to each other.Willy Russell shows this by their clothes, accent or speech. The opening scene started with a funeral we saw some men dressed in black suits putting two bodies into coffins (Mickey and Eddie) however the gauze curtain was still not raised. This seemed like the past and present of the story, as this first scene was the inevitable end. I think that was effective because it immediately gets your attention and you become eager to know whats going on. Mickey and Eddie lay side by side both dead. The narrator then tells us the story of what happened. This is cross-cutting as it shows a different time period then returns to the current one.When we are first introduced to Mrs Johnston, she is a single mother ever since her husband left her for a younger woman. She is not dressed in the best of clothes as she does not have much money and her job is cleaning Mrs. Lyons house. Mrs. Johnston is a lowclass Liverpudlian, who is extremely hard working. Mrs Johnston is shown as a woman in her thirties but a very worn out woman because of the stress of work and her children. Mrs Johnston stutters at times because of her being under pressure, like when Mrs Lyons is persuading her to give away one of the twins.And by Mrs. Johnston stuttering it shows she is unsure and pressured into something she doesnt want to do. Willy Russell presents Mrs Johnston to the audience as a decent woman, who gives lots of love to her children, but she cant give them more than that because she hasnt got a well-paid job and she is working as Mrs Lyons house maid, which takes a lot of her time, which could be spent with her children instead . That is why Mickey and his siblings are left to learn about life themselves on the streets. That makes the audience sympathise with the poor people.She shows that to the audience after she learns she is going to have twins by saying With one more baby we could have managed. But not with two. The Welfare have already been on to me. They say Im incapable of controllin the kids Ive already got. They say I should put some of them into care so because she loves her children and wants to keep them she makes the sacrifice of giving Eddie to Mrs. Lyons with hope that he will have a better life then what she could give him. Even though she regrets giving Eddie to Mrs. Lyons her superstitions stops her from telling anyone about what she has done out of the fear of killing her own children.Mrs Lyons contrasts really strongly against Mrs Johnston. At first, Mrs Lyons is shown as a bright person in her thirties, unlike the stressed Mrs Johnston who is the same age. Mrs Lyons is an upper middle -class woman. She is dressed very smartly as she has the money to have nice clothes. Mrs. Lyons is a very patronising woman, who is forceful and pressurising. Mrs Lyons uses negative views about extra children so that Mrs Johnston will have to give away one of the twins to her. She doesnt do this in an aggressive way, but in a dangerously sweet way. So that Mrs.Johnston doesnt feel like she can cope any more. Willy Russell also shows Mrs. Lyons to be self-centred as Mrs Lyons is willing to take a child away from its mother, so that she can save herself. Mrs Lyons is a very sly and devious woman, as she uses superstition against Mrs Johnston, so that she can keep one of the twins. Her facial expressions are very stern and persuading and her body language comes across very confident as she knows thats she is manipulating Mrs. Johnston. The Narrator is also a very important part to the musical he acts as a shadow of the other characters. Firstly he was like the host.He constantly kept appearing and kept the performance flowing. It seemed as if he had the remote to slow things down and also to speed things up when he wanted. He wore a smart black suit which gave him a high profile. His voice was used quite well because he adjusted it to make it loud and directive as a narrator should have but it also had a bit of power in it. During the performance he popped up here and there just to clarify things for the audience. The Narrator is there as a reminder of Mrs Johnston and Mrs Lyons agreement. The other characters dont acknowledge him which shows he is of a ghostly nature.The Narrator raises suspicion and builds up tension between the characters. The Narrator also has no emotions and he comes across as a very cold person which makes the audience feel as if he is like a devil type figure. Although he is a devil like figure, he is a neutral character because he doesnt choose sides and we dont know anything about him, other than he knows the fate of each character. The Narrator is trying to tell Mrs Johnston and Mrs Lyons that their pact wont work, because the truth will be known. He uses repetition and rhyme, so that his lines are more catchy and memorable.The character of Mickey was portrayed really well as the person playing this role was showing great child like movements such as pulling his jumper over his knees and also by the way he was speaking. The way Mickey was speaking came across very child like as he was doing a lot of rhyming and simple sentences. Mickey also plays childhood games, like mounted Police and Indians, and runs around with a toy gun. When Mickey was playing his cowboy like games he pretended to have a horse between his legs and he galloped around the stage like a child would do.As Mickey got older he showed he was acting more mature and he understood that life wasnt going to be easy for him and he needed to work for things unlike Eddie who had everything sorted out for him. When Mickey has got out of prison he is really unsteady and has to take pills to calm himself even though he doesnt need the pills, he just thinks he does. But when Mickey takes the pills, Willy Russell uses stage directions to give the characters emotion with their physical movement, so when Mickey takes the pills the lights come up on Mickey.We see him go to take his pill, we see him struggle not to take it Russell does this to get the audience to feel sad and sympathetic for Mickey. So in this scene the lighting is really dim, which reflects on Mickeys thought processes which are slow and aged. You can see from this scene that prison has aged Mickey beyond doubt. Mickey used movement and his voice to really portray Mickeys vulnerability. Mickeys movements were slow and it seemed like every step he took was agony. His speech was slow, and his voice was extremely quiet.He walked hunched over, as if trying to protect himself from an unknown fear. Eddie is the complete opposite to Mickey as he was raised in a wealthy family and he shows this in his body language because he stands up straight, speaks politely and is never rude. When Eddie first meets Mickey, Mickey speaks in common English and uses slang around Eddie and he finds it amazing because he has never heard any one talk like that. Eddie seems to have grown up very fast because at the age of seven, he is already very polite and well spoken. His parents have influenced him because he is like a miniature adult.Throughout the whole of the musical Mrs. Johnston sings about Marilyn Monroe, Marilyn Monroe is a very clever icon to use throughout the musical. This is because using her as a reference sets us in the correct time period. She is also a good symbol, because she has links to many of the themes in the play including death, addiction and beauty. All the scenes were set in the same location and the set design remained the same for the whole performance, even when the backdrop changed however, the insides of houses, occasionally descended from the c eiling to show the insides of each home.One the right side of the stage was a wall which had graffiti on it and that represented the lower class type of area that Mickey and Mrs. Johnston would live in. Class difference is displayed very clearly in Blood Brothers, in particular the difference in wealth between the two families. Eddies parents ensure that he has a comfortable upbringing and is able to study at university and receive a qualification, resulting in a highly paid job. This is completely different to Mickey.He comes from a poor family which meant that he was stuck in a dead end job in a factory. I bleeding hated it, standing there all day never doing anything apart from putting cardboard boxes together. This reflects Mickeys frustration and highlights the lack of opportunities open to him, which adds to the dramatic effect of the musical because it prepares us for trouble in the future. A good example of dramatic irony in the musical is when Eddie and Mickey decide that as they are such good friends they will become blood brothers. Hey, we were born on the same day. That means we can be blood brothers. The audience knows that they were actually brothers so that creates dramatic irony. I really enjoyed the musical Blood Brothers and it helped me understand the class difference which is displayed very clearly in the difference in wealth between the two families. I also liked the way the actors never came out of role when bringing in props e. g. chairs, tables and carpets. I also loved how the lighting would make a very serious point feel more real and intense.