Jerusalem
Royal Court
Dreams of Violence
Soho
Lock him up. On paper, the central character of Jez Butterworth’s new play looks like a worthless nuisance, a menace to society. Rooster Byron lives in a derelict caravan and earns cash by supplying children with controlled drugs. He’s a scroundrel, a drunkard, a liar, a sponger, a womaniser, an absentee father, possibly a burglar too. He’s also a charmer, a spinner of yarns, a laugh. The action takes place on St George’s day and Rooster’s band of followers are preparing to resist the council’s efforts to evict him and throw him in jail. Meanwhile, a 15-year-old girl has gone missing and her distraught father (a former member of Rooster’s gang) is convinced Rooster knows her whereabouts.
With this utterly captivating and completely original work of art Jez Butterworth has, apparently from nowhere, created a new mythic archetype, a Blakeian super-hero whose roots lie deep in England’s past but whose world-outlook is freshly minted. Rooster is full of gags and stories. He used to perform motorcycle stunts in the 1980s until the killjoys outlawed ‘daredevilling’. Once he met the giant who built Stonehenge, he tells us. Another time he was kidnapped by Nigerian traffic wardens but after refusing food for a week — ‘I got thinner and thinner and the ropes loosened’ — he got away by escaping up a chimney. Every element in this amazingly witty script is weird, captivating and poetic. As the play develops, the themes become clearer and starker and what emerges is a terrifying comedy about xenophobia, child abuse and tribal violence. Rooster is more than just a character in a drama. Like Mark Antony or Hamlet, he’s a philosophy in action. ‘Cheat, steal, fight to the death. School is a lie. Prison is a waste of time. Girls are wondrous. Grab your fill.’
In the lead, Mark Rylance gives another of his uncannily informal performances. He doesn’t seem to be acting at all, merely behaving. Sometimes a talent of that quality can make others seem wooden by comparison but Rylance communicates his fluidity and naturalism to the rest of the company. And Mackenzie Crook is on superb form as Ginger, Rooster’s adoring sidekick. Ian Rickson marshals the direction with a faultless touch and Ultz’s set is a sublimely scuzzy delight. It’s rash to imagine one has seen a classic but this is a play that prompts rash predictions. If it doesn’t reach the West End — and I’d be astounded if it didn’t — it could tour the country more or less indefinitely. I’ve reviewed 700-odd shows for this magazine and Jerusalem is among the very best.
And back down to earth with a bump. Stella Feehily’s new play, directed by Max Stafford-Clark, follows the tribulations of Hildy, a menopausal leftie assaulted by problems domestic and professional. Her estranged husband refuses to divorce her. Her sick dad is threatened with eviction. Her mum, a drunken ex-popstar played with good-humoured aplomb by Paula Wilcox, comes round every night and ransacks her drinks cabinet. Her angry son is a fat, useless drug addict and there’s trouble at work too. Hildy’s rhetoric has inspired two militant cleaners to kidnap a banker and force him, under threat of being squirted with Domestos, to polish his desk.
Though occasionally funny the play can’t decide if it’s a drama, a satire or an illustrated monologue. And who really cares about Hildy? Only the anti-bourgeois bourgeoisie could possibly be interested in the anti-bourgeois bourgeoisie. With its bombastic title and rambling, self-satisfied manner this feels like the Wednesday Play. If you ever wondered why that strand of entertainment died, here’s the explanation. It wasn’t the executives who lost faith. It was the viewers who lost interest.
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