Blood Brothers Theatre Review Essay Example for Free

Blood Brothers Theatre Review Essay We visited the Phoenix Theatre on the fourth of October and when we the play started I was drawn to the actual setting of the stage; firstly contrast in the set and how it represented the two side’s class divide. Mrs Johnstone’s huge family all cramped up in the small, crumbling, graffiti covered terraced council housing with the rest of the workers and Mrs Lyon’s large elegant suburban detached house with is wrought iron street lamp and large windows and also with the interior of the houses only the kitchen of Mrs Johnstone’s house is shown overflowing with cooking utensils and laundry and other domestic trivialities but not a chair in sight which means Mrs Johnstone is always either shown standing up or sitting on the step whereas Mrs Lyons living room is shown with its tasteful decorating, art deco lamps, corner pillars and a large sofa in the middle where she is often shown sitting on offering another contrast between her and Mrs Johnstone. Another feature of the setting I particularly enjoyed was the raked stage which allowed better levels for the actors the stage is heavily raked, meaning that a lot of the action is easy to see from all over the house. The set is simple and remains stationary, creating a focused performance space and emphasised certain scenes like when Mrs Lyons suggested Mrs Johnstone give her one of the twins she upstaged Mrs Johnstone who had to turn to respond and also allows for multiple scenes such as when Mrs Lyons revealed Eddie and Linda’s ‘affair’ she turned Micky to face upstage where Eddie and Linda are walking together, which emphasises the cross cutting of that scene and another feature of the raked stage is that it simply allowed a better view of the Performance for the audience. The Play began with a frozen image of the dead twins seen through a red gauze curtain and the narrator gives the lines he is to repeat at the end This use of Dramatic Irony means you sympathise more with the characters knowing the fate that awaits them and it is also a very dramatic way to begin the show immediately drawing you in making ask questions which of course are answered throughout the duration of the play. The dramatic irony also makes you play closer attention to the play as you are compelled to see how the situation could have been avoided and it is shown through foreshadowing that all that would happen was set in stone from when a seven year old micky pretended to shoot a seven year old Eddie to when a seventeen year old Sammy pulled a knife out on the bus. These glimpses into their future might have been missed if you weren’t completely Hooked on the play and so the use of framing and dramatic irony means you were absorbed in the play completely. The costume in the play is a strong representation of the social status of the characters and so everything about Eddie and Mickey’s clothes represents key parts of their life and how they have added to their character as their costumes are a large representative of the whole nature versus nurture theme of the play. Eddie as a seven year old wears very neatly pressed v neck sweater over an immaculately white shirt and short trousers whereas mickey was wearing a jumper so ragged and dirty its quite hard to determine what colour it is, it’s full of holes and stretches to well over his knees indicating it is most likely a hand me down. The contrast in the childhood upbringing of the two characters is apparent in their clothing, the closest Eddie has ever come to second hand clothes is when he meets mickey on the other hand mickey has probably grown up with his siblings old clothes and toys et cetera. The adolescent Mickey wears fashionable denim and leather. Which shows him at what was the peak of his life, the happiest his is to be in the play. The adolescent Eddie wears a very smart school uniform The adult Mickey again wears a baggy jumper. However this is when he is dominated by medicine. His clothing also illustrates the loss of that huge childhood energy he had at the beginning of the play. It is hard to determine what purpose the narrator serves. On stage he appears dressed in a smart black suit –reminiscent of funeral garb so sort of fore shadowing but the costume his gives him a neutral status, as we cannot identify anything about his character. It gives him a sense of anonymity throughout the show, and the fact that the other characters do not acknowledge him gives him a ghostlike quality except when he takes a picture of. His main role throughout the show is to act as a constant reminder to us of the Brothers’ tragic fate – exemplified in the musical number ‘Shoes upon the Table’, which is repeated Throughout both acts of the show. It is also notable that as the show commences with the scene of The finale, his attire is like that of somebody who is attending a funeral – and it seems that he is dressed for such an occasion throughout the entire play. The characters seem to look through him or just avoid him until Linda asks h im to take their photograph and it seems as soon as she does this their lives begin to go wrong, coincidence or were their lives touched by evil The use of sound is possibly the most powerful dramatic medium used in the play; the songs are extremely well written fit immaculately with the themes of the play and the lyrics and melody are re used throughout the play. Music was used to draw emotion from the audience. It also helped to move along the action and always conveyed a theme, message or feeling. Echo was also used in parts of songs. However it was recorded and therefore gave a very surreal and artificial effect. The music and lighting combined at the beginning of the play to create both a DRAMATIC EFFECT and a SAD ATMOSPHERE which worked very well to draw you in. The use of the orchestra collaborated well with the songs. The gunshot at the end of the play worked well as it shocked the audience despite them knowing the ending. There was a great contrast in lighting between the countryside and the city. In the countryside it was bright and the scenery consisted of typical green rolling hills and a crystal blue sky. However in the city the lighting was much darker and the scenery consisted buildings. When the front door of Mrs Johnstone house opened light flooded on to the stage. The purpose of this was to generate the idea of presence of Mrs Johnstone and her children living inside the house. The stage was lit up with a red light at the beginning of the end. This was used as an indicator of the bloodshed to follow. A red light also appeared when Mrs Lyons came on to the stage. This illustrated her madness and guilt stricken conscious. This was also done by the use of blackouts. A blue light appeared at the end when the narrator came on to the stage and sang. To illustrate the madness of Mrs Lyons in song flashing lights came on. This made the audience feel uneasy and uncomfortable with the character of Mrs Lyons.

Changes in Catherine throughout the Play :: A View from the Bridge Arthur Miller Essays

Changes in Catherine throughout the Play "A View From A Bridge" is a play by Arthur Miller. It is set in 1950s New York. The play concentrates on a poor family and what happens when some Italian relatives come to stay, illegally. I have chosen to concentrate on Catherine because I fell she undertakes the most emotional changes throughout the play. Catherine is a 17 year old girl who is still studying at school. She lives with her Auntie and Uncle, Beatrice and Eddie. I went to see a production of the play at the Belgrade theatre in Coventry. Overall the play was good. The first act was a little slow and tedious but the second act was excellent. They did rush the end part in which Eddie dies. Catherine was a little over the top and looked like she was trying to seduce Eddie at one point. I liked how they ensured that they were all in the correct attire. Eddie wore a shirt and trousers with a large belt. Both Catherine and Beatrice were in dresses with their hair tied up. Rodolfo had a big quiff and dresses like an old fashioned "teddy Boy". I thought the way the stage revolved to give the idea of a journey with superb. The play starts and Catherine comes in. She is very cheerful and talkative with Eddie. She has a new skirt on and asks Eddie if he "like[s] it". She tells him that "it's the style now." We can see from the start that she is very reliant on Eddie and she wants him to approve of everything she does. This idea is establish when she has news for him. She has been offered a job but she has to check it is alright with Eddie. This gives the impression that Eddie has kept her away from the world and has protected her. They then talk about the job and Eddie agrees to let her take it. Catherine's mood changes when she hears that Beatrice's cousins are arriving. She is excited because she hasn't met many people and has no social life. She wants to meet new people. When they arrive Catherine is in awe of them. She hasn't much experience with new people and she is quite hyperactive. She asks many questions and we get the impression that she is attracted to Rodolfo. She asks him if he is "married?" She likes the fact that he is blonde because there are not many blonde men about. "He's practically Blonde!" We can tell Catherine is trying to make a good impression when Eddie says "What's

Macro and Micro Environmental Forces Essay

External factors are usually divided into micro and macro environment. Macro environment is about external higher order forces which do not affect an organization dealing as yet or directly but may do so in the future. External factors may include; economic, technological, competition, political/legal, and social-cultural factors. Political factors; these are factors that relates to political system and political instability of countries where Nokia Company wish to market its products i. e. Nokia 5800XpressMusic and its music features. This will involve scrutinizing the system of government that such target countries have adopted. Nokia will therefore need to decide whether to invest in communist or capitalist countries after careful consideration of each political system in terms of carrying out business in the chosen country of interest. It is recommended that Nokia Company should invest in those countries with flexible capitalist political systems because it allows labour, capital and resources to flow freely in and out of their countries thus making those destinations the best target markets for Nokia to market its models as well as the advance features of music that it offers. External factors analysis can be best explained as follows: (Nokia for Business, 2008). Economic Factors; this will involve Nokia Company analyzing the economic factors that may hinder or augment its operations in the target countries. Such trade barriers like restriction of imports and exports as well as foreign exchange rate systems should be carefully evaluated by the management of Nokia in order to carry out its operations without economic constraints. Other economic factors of importance to be analyzed by the company will include, inflation particularly anticipated inflation, balance of payments, counter trade, fiscal and monetary policies among other significant factors. Although Nokia may not be subjected to many of the above factors it will be prudent to critically analyze deeply the factors particularly inflation and foreign exchange systems by utilizing forecasting techniques that can give the company a clear picture of the future (Lionel Laurent, 2008). Social Factors; this will involve the management of Nokia Company analyzing income level, social structures, educational backgrounds, and religion and family units before selling its new Nokia phones such as Nokia 5800XpressMusic models that comes with advance features to the community. History reveals that social factors play a major in role in utilization of services in the society for example some religious beliefs may not allow different kinds of music to be played. Therefore, it will be prudent for Nokia to clearly identify the right kind of music for the right consumers as well as for the right markets. Social factors may influence beliefs, interests and attitudes of the consumers and therefore the management of Nokia Company has to consider in details such factors in order to avoid losses associated with these social factors. Technological Factors; technology and innovations have taken centre stage in trying to achieve a considerable market share by firms in many industries. Technology provides an opportunity to the firm of expanding through utilization of advanced technologies but at the same time it may contribute negatively to market participation for example where businesses use technologies to compete unfairly. Nokia will have to utilize advance technologies for example the use of internet marketing while trying to explore new markets in the target market. Such technologies will be useful in that it will save time and financial resources that could have been spent and therefore the management can therefore use the surplus resources in further expansion or pay back its shareholders returns thus getting shareholder confidence in the process (Nokia for Business, 2008). Legal Factors; All businesses including Nokia must operate in a business environment deemed to be legal by the target market. The company will therefore have to ensure that the sale of Nokia 5800XpressMusic series with its all contents that include advance music features are allowed by the host country in order to avoid unnecessary legal battles. Nokia also should observe the existing laws regarding to business transactions in the target market particularly avoiding unfair competition. Also it should observe other legal aspects such as the areas of corporate social responsibility whereby Nokia will be expected to manufacture and sell its products at the same time protecting the environment and benefiting the surrounding community by employing them and also participating in community projects (Lionel Laurent, 2008). On the other hand micro environment is about actual and political transactions used in a firm and its environment in day to day activities of a company that include; customers, suppliers, intermediaries among others. One of such micro factors is the intensity of rivalry among Established Companies; it is true that Nokia faces a very competitive environment that has a big concentration of rival competitors making it a very competitive venture in its business operations. Take for instance; they compete with its rivals across al levels i. e. production of high quality mobile phones with quality features like that of music and hence there is need for Nokia to try all strategies to ensure that it beats its rivals as well attracting more customers every day. Nokia is more organized and have better strategies than the new ones that come up and therefore have a competitive edge over the others. An established company will mean having a well developed network that has a good client base and that is supported by customer loyalty and therefore locking out the new firms that try to make an impact by trying the existing markets. The well established pharmaceutical firms give a big challenge to the new companies in the market that try to make their products known. Even though substitute products like iphones are received in telecommunication industry, it becomes easy for the Nokia to push customers to start using its new mobile series in the market since it has a name in the market and customers are loyal to them (Nokia Inc. 2007). The other factor is that of the bargaining power of suppliers. Suppliers take advantage of their unique supplies to ask and bargain for what they want and enjoy the monopoly and charge expensively for the products or services that they offer. Customers are very sensitive to any changes that may affect them that are caused by the bargaining power of the suppliers. Suppliers are a competitive threat in telecommunication industry because they can raise the prices of new and the old supplies and therefore making the customers to try substitute products such as phones and iphones that can satisfy the same needs. Suppliers may cost Nokia a lot of financial constrain if they switch and fail to supply parts that are used for manufacturing such phones like Nokia 5800XoressMusic series (Botan, 1993). Individuals may prefer to try the substitutes e. g. iphones according to their financial therefore Nokia must try as much as possible to bargain well with its suppliers so that it may get quality products at the right price so that it may also sell and price its products like Nokia 5800XoressMusic series at a an affordable price when compared to its competitors. Recommendations for Strategic Marketing Planning Nokia can enter into joint venture with any firm in the telecommunication industry in order to reach to more customers. The joint ventures are forms of market entry that allows for technology sharing and joint product development which fits the promotion of Nokia 5800XoressMusic series as well as its salient features f music that it offers. The main advantage of joint ventures is to get proper political connections that will allow for favours to be achieved. It is usually suitable when; the market power, resources and size of the partner is small compared to the industry leaders. If Nokia enters a joint venture with any company for instance with Apple Company which is still then it will boosts its market power, and thus it will be able to meet the demands in that particular region. The main issues that are usually sorted out during the discussions for joint venture are; agreement periods, pricing methods, ownership and control, local firm capabilities and technology transfer. Nokia should also employ porter generic strategies in order to enhance its market share; such strategies rely on the dimensions of the strategic scope meaning the market penetration and strategic strength referring to the firms or sustainable competitive advantage such as cost leadership, product differentiation and market segmentation which are required to meet the challenges of the competition. Therefore Nokia can utilize; growth strategies, innovative strategies, among others. However, it should be noted that although they are believed to be the best in the market so far, they are yet to be applied by most companies. Nokia should also apply functional strategies in its marketing operations; these strategies are developed within every department of the company to increase its international sales margins and production. The marketing department can for example prepare an individual strategy that will meet the overall Nokia’s objectives. Other strategies under this include; new product development strategies, legal strategies, financial strategies etc which can also be set up as autonomous strategic business units that are responsible for all of its operations but answerable to the Nokia top management (Murray, 1989). Encirclement Strategies should also be adopted by Nokia while marketing its Nokia 5800XpressMusic touch screens phones. This strategy is also called the envelopment strategy and is a more subtle, gentle, broader and a bit non-offensive but harmful way of attacking the competitor. Normally, this kind of attack is undertaken in two ways. One, introduction of a broader range of products that are similar to the competitor’s products and each of these products will get a share of the same market the competitor is; in this case Nokia will introduce the 5800X series phones which will overtake other competitor’s gadgets such as iphones. In the long run, the competitor will be demoralized, weakened and discouraged leading to a state of siege of the competitor. This first method will ensure that full scale confrontation is avoided between the attacker and the target competitor. Secondly, the encirclement can also be based on market niches rather than the products themselves. In this case, the market share is liberated from the target competitor via the expansion of market niches that surround it; thus Nokia will have to diversify in order to reach to large market share (Lionel Laurent, 2008). Nokia should also draft out clear marketing mix strategies that will enhance a larger market share. A marketing mix is usually used especially on branding and advertising as argued by Jerome McCarthy. The populous four Ps of marketing mix strategies are utilized, these are; Product: Product marketing and management aspects deal with the specifications of the actual good or services and how it relates to customer needs; in this case the new Nokia 5800xpressMusic touch screen phone marketed by Nokia. Such phones should be diverse in its features for instance music enabled and thus meets the expectations of the customers. The characteristics of such 5800Xpress touch screens phones should further be well defined to meet the needs of the consumers (Kottler, 1996). Pricing; pricing is the process of setting a price for a product to be sold in the market and in this case touch screen Nokia 5800XpressMusic to launch by Nokia. It will not be necessarily fixing a monetary value but simply what to be exchanged for the touch screen phone at stake e. g. attention, time etc. Nokia can therefore adopt any of the following pricing strategies to enable Nokia 5800XpressMusic reach its marketing standards. Premium pricing is where the uniqueness of the touch screen phone is defined such as a fixed online fee; Penetration pricing whereby, once Nokia achieves the market share, it increases the price of its product i. e. Nokia 5800XpressMusic phone. Other strategies may include regional pricing strategy which defines the price according to the regions where the phones will be sold. Promotion; promotion strategy comes in various forms; personal selling, publicity, sales promotion or advertising and it refer to the various marketing strategies of convincing the customers to buy the brand, product and in this case Nokia 5800XpressMusic touch screen phone. Nokia should come up with various and best suitable channels of distribution to enable such phones to reach the targeted market. Place; place is also the distribution modes which refer to how the touch screen phones gets to the intended customer. Nokia should ensure that the 5800Xpress series touch screen phones are available to customers in time and in convenient places in order to satisfy their needs. The utilization of computer technology for instance can aid a firm to get access to a wider market thus boosting its business performance (Winer, 2007). Conclusion Research reveals that trade has become progressively more global in some scope these days and there are several grounds for this. One of such reasons is the ever advancement in modern technology that is now increasing communication efficiency and modernization; therefore firms like Nokia are now facing stiff competition from its rivals in the fight for achievement of larger market share. Increasingly, rapid technology lifecycles has increased competition among multinational firms such as Nokia as to who can produce the best services in the mobile telephony market hence the need to employ competitive marketing and business strategies Reference Botan, C. (1993): A Human Approach to Image and Ethics in International Public Relations Journal of Public Relations Research vol 5 No. 2 Carter, S. and Lee, K. (2005): Global Marketing- Changes, New Challenges and Strategies. 1st Edition, Oxford Press, London Kottler, P. (1996): Principles of Marketing: – Stages of customer relationships. 4th European Edition, Prentice Hall, Harlow Lionel Laurent, (2008): Nokia’s Trickle-Up Success: Retrieved from; http://www. forbes. com/2008/06/18/european-innovation-wireless-tech-innovationeu08-cx_ll_0618wireless. html, accessed on March 23rd 2009 Murray, A. (1989): Top management group heterogeneity and firm performance. Strategic Management Journal: Vol. 10 Nokia Inc. (2007): The Route to True Competitive Advantage: Today’s Evolution of Workforce Mobility, Retrieved http://www. nokia. com/NOKIA_COM_1/About_Nokia/Press/White_Papers/pdf_files/nokia_es_phasesofmobility. pdf, accessed on March 23rd 2009 Nokia for Business, (2008): Mobile Technology: A unique Competitive Advantage. Retrieved from,http://www. nokiaforbusiness.com/nfb/DetailPage. html? guid=cb29500194aeb110VgnVCM100000708ef393RCRD, accessed on March 23rd 2009 Press releases, (2004): Nokia defines goals and actions for leadership in dynamic mobile communications market. Retrieved from, http://press. nokia. com/PR/200411/967543_5. html, accessed on 23rd March, 2009 Schon, B. and Allan, B. (1995): Links between Business Strategy and Human Resource Management Strategy in U. S. -Based Japanese Subsidiaries; an Empirical Investigation-Journal of International Business Studies, Vol 26

Writing News Douglas Trevor about His New Novel

Douglas Trevor is the author of a recent novel Girls I Know which received glowing reviews from critics and enjoyed great attention from the readers. It didn’t come as surprising news – although it was his first novel, Mr. Trevor is already an acclaimed author of numerous short stories, mostly from the collection The Thin Tear in the Fabric of Space, which appeared in a lot of different publications, such as The Paris Review, The New England Review, Glimmer Train and some others. Speaking about his novel, he says that in it he tried to do what any modern American writer is supposed to do, even if he is not very enthusiastic about it – to tell about the USA as they are today, because nowadays this country is completely different from what it was like twenty or even ten years ago. He tried to face his characters with the issues that could not have risen before. The novel has been in writing for the best part of the last three years and went through five drafts in total, going from a very convoluted and long first one to its final shape, getting shorter and more collected with each subsequent draft. Even so, the author admits that the pacing of the novel, especially in its first half, is rather slow, which still may cost him some readers – but, as the success of the book indicates, it didn’t harm its overall ratings. Douglas Trevor has a PhD from Harvard, and didn’t conceal the fact that to a certain extent his novel may be considered to be a critique of this establishment – however, in a much lesser degree than it was initially supposed. People who are willing to read about the drawbacks of modern American system of education will still find something to their interest, but most passages dedicated to this topic have only been present in the book in early draft – later Mr. Trevor considered them to be too forced and unnatural to appear in the dialogues of his characters, which meant that they had to go. Nevertheless, the author’s background as a university professor and an academic clearly shows in the text – he still states that a good person is indistinguishable from a teacher and pays a lot of attention to the idea of education in general. Probably his wish to become a writer to a certain degree could be traced to the desire to get his novel into the literary news, to make his voice be heard, to change something with his work. And teaching being the most important part of his life, it can certainly be called one of his central topics.