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Dec. 2, 2011
Play will make the blood run
Willy Russel’s work, being presented by Arts Club, is engrossing.
BAILA LAZARUS
To be honest, I always expect to see good plays at the Arts Club’s Granville Island Stage; not great plays, but good plays. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the likes of Buddy Holly rocking the house. I tapped my toes to Altar Boyz and laughed out loud at Becky’s New Car and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. But I’ve never really been moved by a play at the island theatre. So it was a nice surprise to find myself thoroughly engrossed in a play as I fell into the story of Blood Brothers, the Arts Club’s latest show.
With powerful acting and singing by the entire cast, including a deliciously nasty rendition of the narration by Spirit of the West’s John Mann, this play lives up to its reputation as a musical for those who dislike musicals. And it’s a fabulous option when thinking of giving a theatre performance as a gift.
The play takes place in Liverpool, England, home of playwright Willy Russell, whose work has been influenced by British class wars and the maternal atmosphere in which he grew up.
Mrs. Johnstone (Tarra MacLeod), a maid to Mrs. Lyons (Meghan Gardiner), has the uncanny ability to get pregnant. “Sometimes all it takes is me ’usband to look at me,” she tells Lyons one day in a strong Liverpudlian accent. While she tries to make light of the situation, there is a serious side to the events. She’s pregnant again, already having had five children. Her husband has left, and she’s afraid that the welfare office will take her children away.
So, when the women find out that Johnstone is carrying twins, they make a pact. Lyons, who has been unable to have children, will take one of the boys, but the children are never to see one another, and the truth is never to be shared. If one boy should find out he was born with a twin, both twins will die, Lyons warns, adding to the superstitious undertones of the play.
The children grow up close by one another and become blood brothers, not knowing they are brothers in real life: Mickey, from the lower class, teaches Eddie, his middle-class twin, how to swear and flout the law, much to Eddie’s amusement. And Eddie represents for Mickey a life of dreams, where he can be anything he wants and have any material goods he needs.
Over the years, the families separate, then have their paths cross again, leading to a dangerous falling out between the boys, and their mothers revealing the truth.
In the final scenes, Mickey laments not having been brought up in a wealthier family, giving voice to the playwright’s commentary on class divisions. Yet, ironically, both boys sing, “I wish I could be a little less like me and more like him.”
In case you’re thinking the play is all politics, brooding and guilt, there are several lighthearted moments that add to the depth of the production, often in surprising ways. There’s the simple pleasure of watching the protagonists, as young children, act out various highjinks, but there are some delightful scenarios where the playwright (or director) pokes fun at the fact that, in many plays, one person will have several parts.
In one scene, Mann (who is mostly narrating) shows up as a doctor, while just minutes earlier, he was the milkman.
“I’ve given up the milk run and gone into medicine,” says Mann, to howls from the audience. “I’m your gynecologist.”
Besides the different levels of the play, what I really love about it is its backstory. Playwright Willy Russel (Shirley Valentine, Educating Rita) started life as a hairdresser, then salon manager, factory worker and folk-song writer, finally studying to be a schoolteacher, with no intention of pursuing a career in theatre. It was his wife who pushed him into the direction of drama, and he began writing. His 1974 première of John, Paul, Geoge, Ringo ... and Bert, about the Beatles, garnered him several best-musical awards.
Blood Brothers, written seven years later as a school play, was not a big success on stage until it played as a musical in London’s West End in 1983, winning two Olivier Awards (considered the highest honor in British theatre). It is actually still running at the Phoenix Theatre, where it started in 1991. Soon after opening on Broadway in 1993, it received several Tony Award nominations. Not bad for someone who started out clipping hair.
Blood Brothers also stars Warren Kimmel, Adam Charles and Shane Snow. It runs at the Granville
Island Stage until Dec. 31, Monday to Saturday, 8 p.m.; Wednesday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Tickets are $29 to $54. Call the Arts Club box office at 604-687-1644 or visit artsclub.com.
Baila Lazarus is a freelance writer, painter and photographer. Her work can be seen at orchiddesigns.net.
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