We went to the Congress Theatre, Eastbourne on Thursday 21 January, as part of our English studies, to see a great production of Blood Brothers.
At the beginning of the play it interestingly shows the final scene to help us build up an idea of how the play works. As the play progresses, it shows the two lives of twins, that never knew they were brothers, and grew up in two different social classes, the first being very poor (Mickey) and the second being wealthy middle class (Eddie).
The Narrator gave more depth to the play and tells us the character’s fate, not only was he a narrator but he also interacted with the characters, we thought this worked well because it was like he understood and knew everything they were thinking and saying. Also what the narrator was seeing was what the audience was seeing, so the narrator filled in the gaps and help us to step in to the shoes of the characters, this helped the themes of superstition, class, love and friendship develop better throughout the play. The narrator kept appearing in different places across the stage which gave the effect that he was moving with each scene and showing that they were I different places at different times. When something dramatic happened the frame froze and the narrator walked across the stage saying his lines with dramatic music and a spotlight on him creating a dramatic effect.
The best feature was the set and how it kept changing corresponding to the scene. This helped with the overall effect of the play. This included the backdrops the props and the lighting. One criticism would be that the change from the play being happy to the play being dark was too sudden.
Overall the whole aspect of the play and the characters made for a very enjoyable evening.
Written by Joshua Lee, Maximilian Leinfellner, Daniel Ferrari