‘Blood Brothers’ is a play set in Liverpool in the 1970’s. The reasoning for setting it in this place and era is because of the diversity between rich and poor were extremely evident, for example the amount of redundancies that were occurring in factories, thus Mickey loosing his job. Mickey is one of the two main characters in the play. He is twin brother to Edward, both of whom are unaware of the fact they are siblings. Mrs Johnston is mother of both the boys but due to circumstances of debt and space, she is left with the option of giving one away to Mrs Lyons, her boss who is unable to conceive. In desperation for one to have a good life, Edward is taken and brought up as Mrs Lyons own.
Edward is from a wealthy background, where as Mickey is from a poorer upbringing. They meet by chance as young children, when Edward offers sweets. Children possess innocence and the ignorance with issues such as money and superiority. However Mickey and Edward soon grow up together and through these years the differences become drastically evident. Edward goes off to university and his life consists of parties and new friends, whilst Mickeys wife, Linda becomes pregnant and he is made redundant. This in turn creates a bitter resentment between the two brothers and smoothes the foundation for the downhill spiral of disaster that is about to begin.
This diagram below, is a diagram of the scene that I performed: The contrast in the scene between previous events such as fun at the beach is apparent from the seriousness of the deal that Sammy is trying to sell Mickey. Sammy is dressed in scruffy, but confident clothes. They are scruffy to represent the fact he is broke and needs the money, but confident and ‘hard’ because that is what he wants to portray to intimidate.
Mickey on the other hand, although he is dressed in scruffy clothes, to represent the fact he needs the money and is from the same place as Sammy, they consist of a baggy shirt and trousers to show his insecurities. By Mickey being hesitant, it portrays suppressed intuition about what disaster lies ahead. But Sammy is desperate, as shown by his hands gesturing in front of him for appeal, for ‘someone to keep the eye out’. He starts bullying him into it and taking on the role of his older brother, by bullying him into it and putting him down, ‘What have ya go? Nothin” He knows that Linda is the
most important thing in Mickeys life and so focuses on this, using it as another weapon of persuasion, ‘Where ya takin’ your tart for new years? Nowhere’ He fires questions, that he already knows the answers to, to try and break Mickey down, so he is vulnerable to saying yes. The music that could be included through this extract could be a steady beat, that represents Mickeys heartbeat, this could grow quicker as the he becomes more nervous, building up the tension.
Sammy uses the same stance as he did when he was a kid with Mickey, standing over him, this represents the idea that Mickey still feels inferior to Sammy as he did when he was younger. Sammy speaks fluidly, which highlights his confidence. He emphasises the word ‘use’ as a way of convincing, to say there is no danger. The only time his pace is changed is when he closes the deal, he does it quickly in fear of the possibility of Mickey changing his mind.
There are two stories entwined in this scene, the other is of Edward confessing his love to Linda. Edward is dressed very smartly to emphasise the contrast with money between him and Mickey. Linda is dressed casually in jeans, but is scruffy, much like Mickey to create the image of being poor. Linda glance at Eddie at the start, before walking on by, she does this because she doesn’t wish to speak to Eddie because she senses something bad and feels guilty about not contacting him. Eddie however shouts after her, this emphasises his desperateness to see her. Then he runs after her whilst she ignores his calls, this is reflecting how he has been chasing her his whole life, whilst although she remains not oblivious, she chooses to ignore the signals of his feelings.
‘I heard you had friends’ This represents the idea that Linda has grown up considerably more and moved on from the past. Linda stands apart from Eddie after they hug hello, which portrays the distance between Eddie in comparison to Linda and Mickey in lifestyles. Edward tries to hint dramatically that he cares about Linda more than she thinks by saying he prefers to be with her, this is where the tension is introduced, as Linda tuts ‘Eddie’ as a way of trying to stop what he is about to say. He holds her hand whilst doing this in an attempt to gain closeness. Linda however looks uneasy, this uneasiness is brought to a climax when Edward exclaims he is in love with her. His voice grows louder and more excited in relief from having to conceal his feelings from so long to reveal them and in anticipation to her reply, in hope that she feels the same.
