Learning Objectives
In today’s lesson, you will:
• consider the importance of the songs
to our understanding of the play.
What do the songs add to our
understanding of the play?
The songs in Blood Brothers are used for many different
purposes.
• They create mood and atmosphere.
• They allow the audience to be introduced to characters and
their backgrounds.
• They allow time for the audience to reflect on the happenings
of the play and think about the relevance of the action to
themselves. Brechtian theatre
• The songs emphasise and draw attention to specific actions
and themes.
• The tone of the songs also illustrates the difference between
youth and experience that is explored within the play.
A Little About Brecht: Brechtian
Theatre / Epic Theatre
• German poet, playwright, and
theatrical reformer, one of the most
prominent figures in the 20thcentury theatre. In his works, Brecht
was concerned with encouraging
audiences to think rather than
becoming too involved in the story
and to identify with the characters.
Brecht developed a form of drama
called epic theatre in which ideas or
didactic (instruct or teach) lessons
are important.
M.Rathor. Chapel en le Frith High
Brecht’s theatre:
• Brecht wanted the answer to Lenin’s question ‘Wie und was soll
man lernen?’ ('How and what should we learn?').
• He created an influential theory of theatre named the epic
theatre.
• The audience was discouraged from becoming emotionally
involved with the characters through various techniques.
• The productions aimed to make audience members look at
themselves (provoke rational self-reflection) and the world
around them so that they could make a decision about what
they had seen and the production would raise awareness of the
issues that it covered (and a critical view of the actions on the
stage).
• If the audience was satisfied with the ending and had been
involved, Brecht believed that they would not question what they
had seen on stage. A happy ending left the audience unthinking.
• Instead, he wanted his audiences to use this critical perspective
to identify social ills at work in the world and be moved to go
forth from the theatre and effect change.
M.Rathor. Chapel en le Frith High
His Alienation Technique,
“Verfremdungs-effekt”
The use of anti-illusive techniques to remind the spectators that they are in a
theatre watching an enactment of reality instead of reality itself.
FEATURES IN BLOOD BROTHERS
• Intentionally interrupting the action at key junctures with songs in order to
drive home an important point or message;
• The use of a narrator was designed to stop the audience from becoming
involved in the action.
M.Rathor. Chapel en le Frith High
Listen to the songs
As you listen to them, consider the purpose
for which they are used.
What effect does the song create?
We’ll make notes as we go along.
Marilyn Monroe
The Devil’s Got Your Number
Easy Terms
Marilyn Monroe Part 2
Tell Me It’s Not True
What do the songs add to our
understanding of the play?
How would you structure a response to this question?
Introduction – introduce reasons
Paragraph 1 – character information
Paragraph 2 – manipulates audience feelings – allows them to
empathise with characters and their situations.
Paragraph 3 – creation of mood and atmosphere
Paragraph 4 – audience reflection –
Conclusion