This play was written by Willy Russell and first shown in 1983.The blood brothers are a pair of twins that are separated at birth because their mother can't afford to look after both. They meet several times by accident over the acts and become blood brothers at a young age because they share the same birthday. As they grow up, they grow apart in class and social standing but also in love with the same women.
From the start, the play was highly emotionally charged. It raises the issues of class standing as Mrs Johnstone struggles to feed her family while Mrs Lyons lives very comfortably. Mrs Johnstone is a key character and she was written in so well. She is easy to identify with and experiences real grief, and inner struggle. She sings and acts with such heart that you cry with her, laugh with and struggle with her. Music is a fundamental part of the play as it is a musical. The music outlines the scripts and adds depth to the words and the emotions. An orchestra sat in the pit below but there was also at one point a saxophonist in the wings above and his music floated out over the audience.
The contrast between the wealthy and the poor is well brought in. Mrs Lyon's house is full of light and imagination in comparison to Mrs Johnstone's which is darker and noisy and crowded. However, this contrast leads to the audience examining and reflecting on the debate between nature and nurture. Edward was brought up in a wealthy home enjoying huge priveledges and good education which Mickey had none of. Mickey lost his job and became desperate which eventually lead to robbery and jail. Mickey lived through hardship and struggle. However, the debate that rages in the audiences head is how much of this is down to his social circumstances and how much of it could he have overcome because of his nature. It is a contemporary debate that we still face in our society. Why is it that the crime rate is higher in poor areas? Why is it that a person from a more deprived area will have a lower life expectancy? Is it nature or nurture or a mixture? The theatre is supposed to do this; to make the audience think and question. Hodgson describes it 'investigation' (Hodgson, 1972). Hodgson would describe this play as a tragedy because it is describing actions and themes, based around happiness and unhappiness, that are really worth exploring.
A tragedy is helped by song and by 'language possessing rhythm' (Hodgson, 1972). Both of these characteristics are displayed in the play. The narration particularly uses rhyme and rhythm as can be heard in the trailer for the play above. It gives it a sense of melancholy and gloom, but also of procedure, like life just drones on for these people in unchanging continuity. Hodgson says that today's writers often make their characters sound like rhetoricians. They provoke thought without giving real answer. The narrator at the end of Blood Brothers questions class for example, raising thoughts within the audiences mind.
The end of play evoked real emotions of grief and a sense of the tragedy that had taken place. As Mikey came on to confront his blood brother about the affair he had, a sense of foreboding stole over me because of the music, the lighting and obviously, the gun. However, when the shot fired from behind me and both brothers fell, I really jumped out of my skin and had been totally unprepared for, totally engrossed as the brothers came to the realisation that they were twins. I was beginning to hope for a happy ending. It seemed like they were cut off before they really understood, before we knew how they were going to feel; it was a tragedy indeed. The narration was superb after that. It melancholy and allowed me to continue feeling the numbness which I did feel. When the last song rose up in grief and yet strangely with a sound of hope and determination to continue, that was when I began to unfreeze and I cried with the mother for the loss of two young lives. How relevant this play is to our society and to the problems that are so prevalent in Glasgow. As Aristotle said 'dealing as it does, both with the universal and the particular, drama can deepen and broaden our understanding of the truth even more so than actual events,' (Hodgson, 1972)
References
Hodgson J (1972), The Uses of Drama, London, Eyre Methuen Ltd]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Brothers_(musical)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFIxT7-pgno&feature=related
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