Dramatisation – WJECIntroduction and overview of Blood Brothers
Willy Russell’s Blood Brothers was intended to be performed with music, rather than simply read. It is important to consider the characterisation, staging and music when studying the play.
Reading a play gives a limited experience of how it should be, because it is written to be performed. The actors, scenery and production (ie lighting and sound) all create atmosphere and contribute to the telling of the story and the audience’s feeling of the play.
In a musical, like Blood Brothers, the songs also make an important contribution to the overall experience of the performance. The director of a musical will make a lot of choices about how it is performed, which is based on their interpretation of the text.
The three areas we will look at in terms of the dramatisation of Blood Brothers are: