Jerusalem
By Jez Butterworth
Directed by Lisa Blair
Designed by Frankie Bradshaw
Watermill Theatre, Bagnor, Newbury
Thursday 5thJuly 2018, 14.30
CAST
Jasper Britton – Johnny “Rooster” Byron
Adam Burton – Luke Parsons (council official) / Troy Whitworth – Phaedra’s stepdad
Peter Caulfield – Ginger
Richard Evans – The Professor
Robert Fitch – Wesley, landlord of the pub
Rebecca Lee – Tanya
Nenda Neurer – Pea / Phaedra
Santino Smith – Davey
Sam Swann – Lee, about to emigrate
Natalie Walter – Linda Fawcett (council official) / Dawn – mother of Rooster’s son
Wilf Busby (this show) – Marky, the 6 year old son
From the Watermill website, a synopsis:
St George’s Day. It’s the day of the Flintock Fair and the day Kennet and Avon Council want to see the back of Johnny ‘Rooster’ Byron for good. The new estate want the maverick local boy evicted, but Johnny has other plans.
At his ramshackle caravan kingdom, the charismatic hellraiser entertains his band of ‘undesirable’ scallywags with outlandish tales, unbelievable antics and an ample supply of booze and drugs. Infamous for holding the most riotous parties this side of the Wiltshire border, Johnny is a hero to many but a villain to others. Pursued by the authorities, threatened by the local thug and reprimanded by his ex, Johnny is not a man to be beaten down.
Inciting his own special brew of anarchy, Johnny fights against the hypocrisy of modern suburban life and embodies the spirit of England’s legendary giants of myth. A raucous, earthy contemporary classic, Jerusalem paints a rebellious alternative vision of the idyllic English countryside.
I can’t better that as a starter. The Watermill, in its Berkshire countryside setting echoes the rural Wiltshire of the story … Marlborough in Wiltshire is 19 miles away. And we are seeing this amidst World Cup fever with England flags flying all over the place. It’s a perfect location in both place and time for a play named after England’s unofficial anthem, the song chosen most often at both church weddings and church funerals.
The characters: foreground: Davey (Santino Smith) in red shirt, Pea lying down (Nenda Neurer), Tanya on box (Rebecca Lee), The Professor seated (Richard Evans). In back row, Lee standing (Sam Swann), Rooster with helmet (Jasper Britton), Ginger in silver jacket (Peter Caulfield)
Great plays. They astonish the world on the first run, the original cast seems set in concrete. Could we imagine anyone else than Mark Rylance and Mackenzie Crook in the lead roles? It’s one of Michael Billington’s 101 Greatest Plays and he marked the revival with a list of 20 Best Plays Since Jerusalem.
(Butterworth’s) skill in Jerusalem lies in creating one of the iconic heroes in modern drama, one whom other actors will relish playing once the recollection of Rylance has begun to fade.
Michael Billington The 101 Greatest Plays
So we have to imagine new actors, because a “great play” has to have mileage. It has to work down the line with new directors, new actors. Someone has to have the courage to do it again, and I’m glad that the Watermill was the theatre that dared take on this magnificent play again, the first professional company to do so.
Jasper Britton as Johnny “Rooster” Byron
The set benefits from the tight stage, filling every inch and spilling over. In the front row, the astroturf continued under our feet strewn with cigarette ends, party poppers and bits of streamers. The caravan is necessarily smaller.
Jasper Britton takes the role of Rooster Byron. Wisely, he makes it his own, Rooster in Biker waistcoat, black nail varnish and Yamaha T-shirt, and he does not try to follow Mark Rylance’s interpretation. We were in the Watermill front row, into full charisma of Jasper Britton’s performance, whereas we’d seen Mark Rylance from way back at the awful Apollo Theatre. There was an aspect that’s hard to define. When Mark Rylance did it, everything was reflected through him, so towering was the performance. Jasper Britton also seizes the part, but is somehow more democratic. Everyone has great lines in this play, every character. With Rylance it was watching his reaction to their lines. Britton never stops acting and reacting, but, this is hard to put, while doing so, he never steals the scene from someone else’s great story. I realized that the great lines were much more evenly distributed than when I first saw it. He’s fiercer, maybe more wrecked, but less weird. The strength of the ensemble shone out here.
They have modernised a tad. Peter Caulfield as Ginger did a brilliant “This very week one”. While Rooster is denying what happened in the fracas in the pub that got him banned, CCTV is mentioned. Ginger draws a square TV in the air. Video Assistant Referee, or VAR. The square for a TV gesture has suddenly become a standard part of the 2018 World Cup as players beg the referee to consult the VAR by drawing just such a square, Very timely, and I’d guess an addition to the performance since opening night. Ginger is the other very memorable character. All the kids in Flintlock hang around Rooster for parties, booze and drugs when they’re 15 to 17, but then they grow out of him. Ginger never has, still hanging out with him after twenty years, and despised and ridiculed … and not invited to parties either. Peter Caulfield’s “stoned Ginger” was hilarious.
Robert Fitch as the Morris Dancing pub landlord, Wesley
The play divides into Rooster’s acolytes, and the rest who are against him. Pub landlord Wesley (Robert Fitch) has been forced by the brewery to spend the day of the Flintlock Fair Morris Dancing so needs some “whizz” to get him through it. He’s Rooster’s generation, so they can reminisce, but is bullied by both his wife, the unseen Sue, and the brewery. We have the Kennett & Avon Council officials played by Natalie Walters and Adam Burton, filming everything to cover their backs. Both have to double. Natalie Walters plays Rooster’s estranged partner and mother of his child, Dawn. Adam Burton plays his nemesis, Troy.
Troy’s stepdaughter, Phaedra has gone missing. He suspects she’s with Rooster, who denies it. The Romany insults to Rooster fly fast … gyppo, diddicay, pikey. To be fair, that’s fairly common in Dorset, Wiltshire and Hampshire with so much common land to allow pitches. This is our part of the country. Karen’s mother was born in Cricklade, Wiltshire. My grandad came from Cranborne in North Dorset. Rural Southern is in our blood. The play captures it.
Without checking text, I thought the reference to Newbury as local (big laugh) might have been added. Good idea. Nerdy point: I still wonder why no one’s corrected the play text of Rooster’s story which involves the A14 road at Upavon. All roads with “1” numbers are in the east of the country. In Wiltshire, it would be “3” or “4” (it’s the A345) but maybe it’s deliberate to show that Rooster is sailing on a tide of bullshit. In London it would probably not be noticed. Down near the Wiltshire border, it is. In a county where the expanse of Salisbury Plain is broken by so few roads, locals know the numbers.
Troy (Adam Burton) confronts Rooster
There are changes. The music is different, apart from Jerusalem and Werewolf sung by the “missing” 15 year old Phaedra (Nenda Neurer who also plays the 16year old Pea) to start the play. A major one was that in the original, Rooster was beaten up in the caravan to Sandy Denny’s Who Knows Where The Time Goes, a powerful and weird juxtaposition that sticks in the mind. It’s not in the text, and here it was a 1960s guitar instrumental instead. There’s a lot more stage blood after the beating, but that’s normal. Apparently they have a more washable type.
The references to English mythology came out strongly, from the St George’s Day setting to Rooster’s story of a giant who built Stonehenge, to his recitation of mythical figures in his final rant. There are always things you notice for the first time. They’re all against the “new estate” but Tanya lives there … in Pendragon Close of course.
The kids buzzing around the magnetism of Rooster all looked older here than I’d remembered, especially the boys. I’d recalled them looking very young so Ginger stood out as 15 or so years older, whereas they seemed about the same age here. Probably it was that we were so close to the actors. The girls, Nenda Neurer as Pea and Rebecca Lee as Tanya, get away with appearing teenage better, as girls do. I guess Davey (Santino Smith) works in an abbatoir and Lee (Sam Swann) is about to emigrate, so the boys are supposed to be a bit older. Both are superb interpretations.
I like Jez Butterworth’s insistence on three acts. It’s done here with two 12 minute intervals, so acts are 45-55 minutes. That works at theWatermill with a small audience, and was plenty of time to use the loos and buy ice cream, and it will work in modern arts centres with adequate loos. It might have to be rethought in a West End London theatre with larger audiences and fewer loos.
I assume the Watermill’s plan is to tour whatever they can, hence such great productions in such a small space. I hope this does a tour and a London run. It deserves to do so. As of July, this is the best play we’ve seen in 2018 so far with Jasper Britton as the best lead performance too.
*****
WHAT THE CRITICS SAID
5 star
Domenic Cavendish, The Telegraph *****
Dominic Maxwell, The Times *****
Sarah Crompton, What’s On Stage *****
The Spy In The Stalls *****
4 star
Robert Gore-Langton, Mail Online ****
3 star
Arifa Akbar, Guardian ***
Tim Bano, The Stage ***
LINKS ON THIS BLOG
JEZ BUTTERWORTH
The Ferryman, by Jez Butterworth, Royal Court, 2017
Jerusalem by Jez Butterworth, West End, original production
Mojo by Jez Butterworth, West End
LISA BLAIR
The Country Girls by Edna O’Brien, Chichester 2017
The Hypochondriac by Moliere, Bath 2014
JASPER BRITTON
What The Butler Saw, by Joe Orton, Bath 2017
The Jew of Malta, RSC 2015 (Barabas)
Henry IV Parts I and II, RSC, 2014
ADAM BURTON
My Brilliant Friend, Rose Kingston 2017
The Duchess of Malfi, Old Vic 2012
NATALIE WALTER
A Little Hotel On The Side, Bath, 2013