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2012
Theatre
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London,
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Reader rating
Dir: Ian Rickson.
Cast: Mark Rylance, Gerard Horan, Mackenzie Crook
Description: Jez Butterworth's comic look at life in England follows Johnny Byron, a waster who is on the run from his children, the local council, a man who wants to beat him up and his mates, who are after his ample supply of drink and drugs.
Trains: Tube: Sloane Square 
Phone: 0207565 5000
Website: www.royalcourttheatre.com
Anarchic: Mark Rylance’s Johnny Byron is a hedonistic sloth
Support: Mackenzie Crook as wifely Ginger
The word Jerusalem is a peculiarly evocative one for the English. It calls to mind not so much the capital of Israel or the spiritual centre of Judaism as the hymn which has become a surrogate national anthem — a touchstone for rugby fans, Promenaders and the WI.
In Jez Butterworth’s energetic new play William Blake’s vision of “England’s green and pleasant land” is transmuted into a fiesta of bucolic misrule. Set in a wood in an obscure part of Wiltshire on St George’s Day, Jerusalem is a paean to anarchic self-expression. It proudly repudiates the sterility of a world governed by Asbos, health and safety regulations and the micromanagement of pleasure.
The central figure, Johnny Byron, is a former daredevil biker who has become a sort of 21st-century Pied Piper, followed by teenagers and dropouts. Defiantly anti-authoritarian, he’s a mix of feral nuisance and latterday English martyr, barred from every local pub and shacked up with his memories and neuroses. The police are threatening to bulldoze his mobile home, and most of the local community want him gone.
Like the poet whose name he shares, Johnny Byron is mad, bad and dangerous to know. His is a world in which spliffs are “lush”, Class A drugs get raked into lines with a Trivial Pursuit card, and it’s plausible that someone would pee in an accordion.
Yet amid the narcotic carnage he also proves a curiously heroic figure, majestic despite his many flaws. In the hands of Mark Rylance he is an amoral aphorist, hedonistic sloth, piratical humorist and enthusiastic baiter of the “sausage-fingered constabulary”. He may be grubby and dishevelled, but intermittently he is Napoleonic.
Rylance has first-rate support. Mackenzie Crook excels as Johnny Byron’s almost wifely sidekick Ginger, and Tom Brooke as a young man whose faraway stare betrays a life given over to late nights and contraband substances.
Director Ian Rickson has skilfully marshalled the play’s chaos; the production feels careful even in its occasional flights of carelessness. The set, by Ultz, is wonderfully detailed and atmospheric. Tall trees preside over a raunchily primitive chaos, intelligently lit by Mimi Jordan Sherin.
There are evident weaknesses in Butterworth’s text. After an explosive beginning the action meanders, especially in the second of the three acts. The story is thin. It’s also too long.
Yet it hardly seems to matter. Besides moments of gut-busting humour, the play is lit up by a profane intelligence that zeroes in on the pedantry of the nanny state.
And, in Johnny Byron, Butterworth has created a thrilling role. Rylance’s is an astonishing performance, which confirms that he is one of our finest stage actors.
Until 15 August. Information 020 7565 5000.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
Offer: Jerusalem tickets - Apollo theatre*
Price: £25.00
Details: Jerusalem is a comic, contemporary vision of life in our green and pleasant land.
...more
* Online booking only
At last a play to challenge the diktats of the Health & Safety brigade! Rooster - the Jimmy Porter of the age - speaks for for the millions who are sick and tired of being told how to live their lives. If it's not H&S, it's recycling or being told what to eat and what not to eat (the items vary depending on the weekly supermarket sales figures). A play as well-written and powerful as this can change attitudes - look at the success of the 1960's 'kitchen-sink' dramas. Before it was society that was behind the times but now it's the authorities intent on regulating behaviour and trading on people's fear as the means to control every aspect of people's lives. Mark Rylance is stunning as Rooster and this play will make a big splash in the West End and, definitely, New York. Also, a beautiful production that returns the world to a kinder, more liberal age when one could have a birthday party without the snoops invading the barbeque.
- Dj, London
The Royal Court's Jerusalem is a terrific achievement. Hopefully
this fresh new play by Jez Butterworth marks the end of left-wing domination of theatre in recent years with its narrow focus on ideological and feminist issues.
Mark Rylance's shamelessly theatrical performance as Johnny
Byron is a joy to watch. The play is multilayered, and defies
definition by political categories - ( the control-freaks on the left won't like this .. . and will give Butterworth a lot of flak .. .
But, you can't keep a good production and a good script down
- its sheer entertainment value will ensure its popularity. )Ostensibly a satire on Middle England, the play has various allegorical strands . . . Johnny Byron could be Falstaff, Lord
Byron, Jesus, Robin Hood, Schererzade,Grendel, depending on your point of view. Jez Butterworth has created a wonderfully
complex character. What's more, the emphasis is on the text,
and the recent obsession with `physical theatre` is shelved in favour of verbal pyrotechnics. . . . . With its 3 hour length
Jerusalem is powerful, truthful, exhilerating theatre and if you
can get a ticket, I urge you not to miss out on the theatrical experience of the year.
- John Cooper, London UK
