Jerusalem
Royal Court, London
Dreams of Violence
Soho Theatre, London
Once upon a time, some 30 years ago, British theatre staged bold state-of-the-nation plays. Then these went out of fashion in the “me” decade and the nasty 1990s. Recently, not only has political theatre made a comeback, but also plays about the state of Britain are popping up all over the place. Two have just opened in London. And they make for contrasting viewing.
Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem immediately alerts you to the fact that it’s set in Deep England rather than the Middle East by the large, if weathered, Cross of St George that decorates the theatre’s curtain. Already hailed as a state-of-the-nation pastoral play, it is set on St George’s Day and describes what happens when the local council tries to evict Johnny Rooster Byron, who lives in a mobile home in a wood.
The opening snapshot, a nocturnal bacchanalia of house music, gyrating girls and drug-addled wildness, is brilliant. Rooster, an ex-daredevil stunt driver, is a symbol of the contemporary freeborn Englishman, a roaring mix of skiving wastrel and Pied Piper. As he doles out booze, drugs and tall tales to a group of hangers on, which include Ginger and Lee as well as some 15-year-olds, this larger-than-life figure is gradually revealed to have some deeply unattractive features.
Brilliantly embodied by Mark Rylance, who is one of the most natural and convincing of actors, he is an absent father, incompetent male and has a suspicious liking for very young girls. At the same time, he’s a hippie anarchist who seems to be directly plugged into an olde myth of traditional England, rural, pagan and dreamy.
But he doesn’t have a chance against the modern world, represented by bureaucratically tedious council officials. Of course, this is dangerously close to those reactionary columnists, such as Richard Littlejohn, who complain about any legislation with interferes with their right to do as they please. However, the humour, bravado and sheer excess of Butterworth’s vision wipes out most doubts.
As the play’s title reminds us, this three-hour lament, directed with enormous sensitivity by Ian Rickson, for a freewheeling England whose time is up, is resonant with a powerful sense of loss.
By contrast, Stella Feehily’s Dreams of Violence is a much lighter, and very much shorter account of our modern malaise. Set in London, the story focuses on Hildy, a 1960s-style activist who aims to lead cleaners in the City in revolt against their banker employers.
With funny one-liners pinging around the stage, it takes a while to discover the full horror of her emotional life. She’s married to a philandering husband, her mother is an alcoholic, her son is a drug addict and her father is senile. Feehily deftly mixes comic brio with some very tough emotional moments, although her political point – that direct action by workers is better than relying on middle-class do-gooders – is defiantly optimistic.
Still, this production, directed by Max Stafford-Clark, has plenty of light-hearted moments, which sometimes obscure its sense of anger – not so much against the banking system as against the lottery of life, which sometimes deals out incapable parents, unfaithful partners and ungrateful kids all to one person.
Together, Feehily and Butterworth’s accounts of contemporary Britain convey a powerful sense of loss and discontent. It all feels a bit gloomy, but real.
Aleks Sierz
