Blood Brothers evaluation Essay

The performance was melodramatic with big hand gestures and with altered voices. Being melodramatic and the big gestures made it clearer to see what was happening on stage especially as the audience was seated so far away from the actions of the characters. The narrative was set in an old road in Liverpool with Liverpudlian accents, so the actors altered their voices to cockney accents to create a believable setting. The staging was well thought out because the stage was narrow and the seats were plotted around the stage with three floors and lots of seating. It had a rich and luxurious feeling to it and the audience must have felt the same way too, especially with the binoculars built into the seats. The cyclorama (hanging cloth/sky cloth) had a big affect on the audience because it created an illusion of stars and night, which is not commonly used on most stages so it was particularly impressive. The thing that makes or can make musicals in this genre more attractive are props because they add colour, they make it more realistic, added connotations and helps you to tell what is happening by symbolic representation. The set disappointed me because you could see people controlling the light and the sound, which was a bit distracting, and it was harder to imagine the narrative. The lighting was technical with lots of lights to create the mood, atmosphere and time of day. To create stars on the cyclorama they beamed a concentrated white light onto a moving disco ball at an angle so the audience could tell what time of day it was. But the only problem was that some of the stars bounced of onto the audience so they had to move their head uncomfortably to dodge the beam going into their eyes. The main tone of lighting was houselights to portray inside scenes and flood lighting for the outside scenes. It shows the audience where the characters are and what time of day is being portrayed. The sound effects were very realistic and gave the audience a clear impression of the setting of each scene. At one point in the play they used a cockerel sound affect to help create the illusion of a countryside scene. The theme was a hybrid between a musical and a tragedy, with the addition of comedy, which made it even more entertaining. It was set back in the mid 80’s early 90’s. The houses on the set were council estate with an old brick laid road, which gave the impression of a run down, working class community. This could have made the audience sympathetic to the characters, although the children were not properly educated or disciplined enough by their parents to respect their environment. The biggest moments of impact were the rude parts which made me laugh and the unpredictable parts which shocked and surprised me and the audience around me. At one point a young boy was hiding behind a bed sheet on a washing line, when a certain part of the sheet started to rise, insinuating that the boy was sexually aroused by a young girl in his presence. This was a particularly hilarious scene and the audience roared with hysterical laughter. Towards the end of the play the two main characters, Mickie and Eddie, stood facing each other with Mickie pointing a gun towards Eddie. This whilst their mother Ms Johnston was trying to persuade Mickie to put down the weapon. Then BANG!! BANG!! – and Eddie fell to the ground closely followed by Mickie. The audience jumped with shock at this point.