Introduction
Willy Russell’s “Blood Brothers” is a play full of humour and energy, but some of the plot’s important turning points involve moments of violence and the theme runs throughout the action.
Childhood Play
During the “Kid’s Game” sequence, the children act out very violent moments from history. For example, Al Capone was a notorious gangster who was involved in organised crime. There is also a verse which describes a shootout between two gunslingers from America’s west. Sammy “produces a bazooka” to kill his opponent and then “children become a brigade of US troops”. The song ends with Sammy launching a “condom filled with water” which is supposed to be an atomic bomb.
The “battling children” and the playful sounds of “cap guns” and “whoops” could be dismissed as insignificant fun. However, it could also be argued that they are being desensitised to violence.
Russell’s own attitude is revealed in the stage direction immediately before Mickey begins his opening monologue when he describes the how the “magic has gone out of genocide”. By identifying the game of “mounted police an’ Indians” and how they have “wiped out three thousand Indians” as “genocide”, the playwright makes it clear that their entertainment is completely inappropriate.
Of course, Mickey’s murder at the end of the song foreshadows his death at the end of the play so it is a useful structural device that sets up the story’s conclusion.
During Mickey’s first monologue, he describes some of Sammy’s violent actions. The older brother “robbed me toy car” and “now the wheels are missin’ and the top’s broke off”. He even “wees straight through the letter box”. Mickey admires the dexterity of his “dead mean” brother, but he is also upset at the loss of his car that used to go “dead straight”.
Again, these actions could be labelled as the mindless cruelty of a young boy, but they are moments of destructive and malicious violence that harm Mickey emotionally. Also, the repetition of “dead” in this scene is a very subtle reminder that violence can have fatal consequences.
Breaking Windows
In Act One, Mickey is irritated because he failed to hit the “Peter Pan” target with the “air pistol”. Trying to raise his spirits, Linda suggests they “throw some stones through them windows”. The stage directions describe the young boy “brightening” at the thought of the casual destruction of someone’s property. They are caught by the Policeman, but the moment shows how violence continues to be viewed as a fun distraction by the children.
Mrs Lyons
Perhaps one of the most vivid moments of physical and emotional violence occurs in Act One when Mrs Lyons demands that Edward no longer visits Mickey “where boys like that live”. Edward is angry and calls his mother a “fuckoff”. This beat of the story always evokes laughter in the audience because it was set up effectively by the boys’ earlier dialogue about “The ‘F’ word”.
That comedy increases our utter shock when “Mrs Lyons hits Edward hard and instinctively”, especially if the slap is heard all around the theatre.
There is “terror in Edward’s face” so the young actor’s reaction is important to convey the terrible fear that will grab our sympathy.
Mrs Lyons uses physical violence to control her defenceless son. Ostensibly, she does not want him to be a “horrible little boy” and use foul language. However, the audience are fully aware that she does not want Edward to be playing with his biological brother because she is incredibly insecure about her maternal connection with him.
A deadlier act of violence occurs in Act Two when Mrs Lyons confronts Mrs Johnstone and accuses her of “following” Edward and trying to tear him away from her with the locket. After attempting to bribe her, the stage directions describe how she “has opened the knife drawer” and “lunges” as Mrs Johnstone with a “lethal-looking kitchen knife”.
Russell tries to heighten the drama of the attack with a “punctuated note” at each moment.
Watching the two actresses struggle on stage is a very tense moment for the audience and a reminder that physical violence can have awful consequences.
It should also be noted that Mrs Lyons plays a part in sequence leading up to the fatal climax of the play. She is the one who “turns Mickey round and points out Edward and Linda to him” and reveals their “light romance”. Mickey becomes emotionally distraught, immediately goes home and “flings back the floorboard to reveal the gun hidden by Sammy”.
Sammy
At the end of Act One, the Johnstone family have moved to a new home that has great access to the countryside. Comically, Mrs Johnstone has to warn Sammy to “get off that bleedin’ cow”.
At the start of Act Two, Mrs Johnstone tells the audience that Sammy “burnt the school down” when he was playing with “magnesium”. Rhyming “it’s very easily done” with the chemical element is incredibly funny and the tone of the song at this point is light-hearted.
This dialogue is warmly received by the audience. Violence, it seems, can be humorous.
However, in the next scene on the bus, Sammy “produces a knife” to avoid paying the full fare and even tries to rob the money bag from the conductor. Physical violence is also a way the characters try to threaten others to get what they want.
The Filling Station
Mickey is unemployed and his wife is expecting a baby. Feeling despondent and worthless, he agrees to rob a filling station with Sammy for “fifty quid” so he can treat her to a “slap-up meal” and “new clothes”.
However, when the “frighteners” Sammy uses against the “offstage character” fails to intimidate the worker, there is an “explosion from the gun”. The Narrator informs the audience that a “man lies bleeding on the garage floor”. That violent “explosion” will startle the audience and we will be appalled by the idea they have seriously wounded a man.
Mickey’s repetition of “you shot him” is another reminder of the games the children played in Act One. The violence is no longer limited to those games.
By depicting the violence offstage, Russell saves the visual drama of being shot until the end of the play.
It is also important to note that this act of terrible violence leads to Mickey’s imprisonment and dependency on antidepressants.
The Climax
After the final applause and the curtain comes down on the play, the most obvious moment of violence that lingers long in the memory of the audience is the deadly climax when Mickey shoots Edward and the police retaliate.
Mickey uses the threat of deadly violence to try to learn the truth about Edward and Linda’s relationship. Sadly, when Mrs Johnstone intervenes and reveals the truth about the brothers, Mickey becomes “uncontrollable with rage” and he “waves at Edward with his gun”. Notice how the stage direction then indicates how “the gun explodes”, distancing Mickey from the act of violence to maintain the audience’s sympathy for the character.
The bullet “blows Edward apart” and the tragedy is complete. The final act of violence is the most dreadful.
