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- Tokyo
- It's now almost a quarter
of a century since Blood Brothers was written - I hadn't realised
I was that old!
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- Blood Brothers is a simple
tale. That was what I wanted to write: a simple tale,
one that openly acknowledged its antecedence in the folk tale,
myth, superstition, the ballad, even the nursery rhyme: years
before I got around to the actual writing of Blood Brothers I
had in my head the image of a mother making her way along the
verge of a motorway, her gaggle of children streaming behind
her.
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There was
an old woman who lived in a shoe
She had so many children she didn't know what to do |
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- Then there was seeing Jimi
Hendrix for the first time on British television. And yes, the
guitar playing was magnificent. But it wasn't the guitar playing
that made the hairs rise up at the back of my neck, that caused
a cold but thrilling shiver of connection to something both of,
and not of this earth.
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- Hey Joe
Where you goin' with that gun in your hand
I said hey Joe where you goin' with that gun in your hand
I'm goin' down town I'm gonna shoot my old lady
You know I caught her messin' round with another man
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- A simple tale; just another
guy gone crazy, torn apart by the whim of a woman who maybe wants
something, something else, someone else; something
more? Simple. How many times have we heard that tale before?
So simple, is it even worth the telling?
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- Then there was Ibsen. And
I was up against the deadline, trying to write what would eventually
emerge as Blood Brothers but was, at that time, nothing more
than two month's of getting nowhere, two months of filling the
wastepaper basket as attempt after attempt to write a play, any
play, amounted to nothing. At that time I didn't even know what
play it was that I wanted, or needed to write. Nothing would
come. And one afternoon, thoroughly demoralised, dejected, fully
convinced that I would never write again, I gave up. And instead
of sitting at the writing desk, pen in hand, I picked up a copy
of Ibsen's A Doll's House and curled up on the couch.
- A Doll's House was a play
I'd avoided because, at that time, the vogue amongst commentators
and critics in Britain was to talk of A Doll's House as a play
that was, essentially, a fanfare for feminism. Unaware that this
reductive reading of the play said far more about critics and
commentators than it did about Ibsen or A Doll's House I'd allowed
myself to build up certain notions (prejudices!) about the play.
But then I read it. That afternoon, unable to write any kind
of play of my own, I read a play by Henrik Ibsen. And what did
I find; sublime simplicity: a woman, Nora, whose actions are
propelled not by intellectual notions of feminism but by the
desire to protect her husband. Nora who tells 'a little lie'.
Simple? How many times have we heard that tale before? How many
times in our ordinary everyday lives have we heard of somebody
who was forced into a small deceit, who told 'a little lie',
who slightly bent the truth in order to protect or spare the
feelings or the fate of another? And how many times have we seen
that innocent little lie, that tiny maggot of deceit begin to
swell and to grow and to gorge and ultimately devour its creator?
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- That's some of where Blood
Brothers came from. There's more, much more but, of course, tonight
is not a night for authors and their explanations. Blood Brothers
was written to be played, not explained. And now here it is,
back in Japan, back in Tokyo, back in the land where I made such
good friends, where I learned to say, 'okini' in Kyoto and made
maidens and matrons blush as they laughed; Blood Brothers back
in Japan, back in the upside down language in the hands of the
wonderful Glen-san and the marvellous cast of actors brought
together by Fuji Televison. And to all of them, and all of you,
along with my warmest good wishes, I send the hope; that my simple
tale is worthy of you all.
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- Willy Russell
- September 22nd 2003
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- or - for our Japanese readers
>>>>
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