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| Blood runs deep in ‘Brothers’ | ||||||||
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| FALL RIVER -- The young girl who ends up as Mrs. Johnstone had her prime, a time when, she sings, she "looked a bit like Marilyn Monroe." |
| Most likely she did look a little like Marilyn back then, but
several children and an uncaring husband made her old at
25. And now the husband, what there was of him, is gone and the twins in her belly are a worry, as is the price of milk. She’s having trouble making the rent, is Mrs. Johnstone, back there in the bleak Liverpool, England, of the 1960s. So she takes a job, working as a domestic for Mrs. Lyons, a woman with money. And, one ill-advised day, she decides to let Mrs. Lyons raise one of her twins. She and Mrs. Lyons together decide the boys, for boys they are, must never know that they are twins. And that’s fine, for a while. That’s the set-up of "Blood Brothers," a "musical tragedy" now playing at the Margaret L. Jackson Arts Center at Bristol Community College. Performed by the Little Theater of Fall River, the play is a balance between stark reality and sly working-class humor, all with a musical garnish. The music may seem out of place in this dark tale, but the notion of a chorus is central to Greek tragedy, and it works well here, too, as the music not only lifts but drives the story and keeps the audience interested. The scenery is pretty simple, gritty as the working-class town it represents and there isn’t much reason for the actors to be colorfully costumed. The play’s weight is in its words and its tension, not a bad idea if the words are worthy of the weight. The words do it well in this one, and the cast is up to the words. Director Ron Robinson and assistant director Betty Ward get good work out of their actors. Deborah Sadler is a fine Mrs. Johnstone, personifying the put-upon, beaten-down female whose life is no longer something she controls. One of the things stitching the play together is the narrator, an explicatory voice that author Willy Russell uses as he uses the chorus, to let us in. John Ashley’s narrator is well-played, moving by turns from wry humor to pathos to straightforward explanation. Ashley’s narrator is funereal but funny, a good pivot for the play’s action. The brothers are played by David Faria and Richard Bento, while Vanessa Raposa does duty as Mrs. Lyons. Of course, musical tragedy, being what it is, the brothers true relationship will cause some difficulty. Revealing just what kind of difficulty will spoil the play, but suffice it to say that the tension and the plot both build and surprise. Very few in the audience will guess the ending. Throughout the play, the audience waits and watches, uncomfortable with Mrs. Johnstone’s decision, waiting for the denouement. Mrs. Johnstone, who made the choice, seems to wait as the audience does, sure in some visceral way that something bad will happen. The play debuted last night and there are performances tonight and Saturday night at 8 p.m. and a Sunday matinee at 2 p.m. Tickets are $15, with discounts available for seniors, students and groups of 20 or more. For information and reservations, call 508-675-1852. |
| ©The Herald News 2002 |
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