"A new Student Edition of Willy Russell's enduring 1983 play offering accessible and vivid insights through a C21st lens. The commentary conveys how groundbreaking the play was at the time in representing working-class lives on stage, as well as explicitly critiquing the British class system. Alongside delving into the themes, dramatic devices, context and characters of the play, students are encouraged to consider what it must have been like to be at the very first performance; draw comparisons between life then and now; and develop their own creative projects based on the story"--
Willy Russell's 1983 play with music tells the story of twin brothers separated at birth because their mother cannot afford to keep them both. One of them is given away to wealthy Mrs Lyons and they grow up as friends in ignorance of their fraternity until the inevitable quarrel unleashes a bloodbath.
After its premiere at the Liverpool Playhouse, the musical has gone on to receive productions around the world and ran for decades in London's West End, as well as extensively touring the UK.
This revised Student Edition includes a commentary by Rebecca Hillman, which offers accessible and vivid insights into the play and the context in which it was written through a 21st-century lens. As well as helping us appreciate the play today, it also conveys how how ground-breaking Blood Brothers was at the time in representing working-class lives on stage, as well as explicitly exposing the flaws of the British class system.
Arvustused
This Student Edition is a class act packed with lucid, easily digestible, yet valuable insights that will help students think about and analyse the meanings and intentions of the play with greater care. Its also a welcome reminder of why Blood Brothers deserves to be part of our cultural DNA. * Teach Secondary *
Muu info
This Student Edition offers contemporary, accessible and vivid insights into the play and the context in which it was written, and conveys how groundbreaking Blood Brothers was at the time as well as looking at direct parallels today.
Chronology
Commentary
Socio-political landscape: Britain under Margaret Thatcher
Themes: class and identity, family, nature v nurture, superstition v materialism, economic hardship (including strikes, debt, unemployment, cuts to the arts), fate
Characters: Mrs Johnston, Eddie, Mickey, Linda, Mrs Lyons
Dramatic devices: twins as framing device, monologue, the play as musical & rise of the mega-musical
Design: lighting, sounds, costume, set, props
Similar works (kitchen sink drama, working-class originated theatre& TV)
Willy Russell: other works
Production history, including first performance of the play in a classroom and Blood Brothers productions across the world (eg. South African production, 2013)
PLAYTEXT
Notes to the play
Willy Russell is a playwright and songwriter, and one of the most-produced writers of his time. His plays and musicals for stage and TV including John, Paul, George, Ringo ... and Bert (1974), Breezeblock Park (1975), One for the Road (1976), Our Day Out (television 1977; stage musical version 1983), Stags and Hens (1978; filmed as Dancin' thru the Dark, 1990), Educating Rita (1979), Blood Brothers (1981; musical version 1983), and Shirley Valentine (1986).
Rebecca Hillman is Senior Lecturer at the University of Exeter, UK. Her research and teaching concerns performance as political activism and agitprop theatre. She focuses on theatre made by activists and trade unions in Britain since the 1960s.
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