Jerusalem

Jerusalem

Aug 20, 2011

with Kara

Orch P 8

Note: This review was written after postshow discussion with Kara and incorporates some of her thoughts, too.

I was so pleased to see Jerusalem before it closed as it had been on my must-see list for months.

The problem in reviewing Jerusalem is knowing how, or even where to start. Do I focus on the acting? On the script? On the story as it appears on surface level or as it appears when one delves deeper?

Alright. Let’s start with the surface. There’s a man named Rooster who lives in the woods in the vicinity of an English town. He’s been there for about twenty years, drinking, rabble-rousing, and welcoming whoever wants to join him. These have mostly been young teenagers, some of whom have stuck with him into their adulthood and others who are now trying to drive him out of the woods and keep their own children from him as they’ve decided he is unsavory and driving the property values down. As the play begins, city officials nail an eviction notice to his trailer and the rest of play carries on with his friends in turns facing and denying what is about to happen as Rooster remains in denial, too. Even his ex-wife and child visiting fail to bring him around. To further complicate matters, a teenaged girl is missing and her father, formerly one of Rooster’s teenaged party-goers is convinced Rooster has her. This is all juxtaposed against an annual festival taking place in the town that day and

memories of how Rooster, a former stuntman until one near-death-experience too many, made the town council end his days as the highlight of the festival. The play ends with the girl found in Rooster’s trailer, where she’s been sleeping off the previous night’s party and hiding from her father, Rooster beaten by the father and his friends, and him alone to stand off the roar of the bulldozers in the distance.

Scratch a bit beneath this hilarious and at times disturbing surface and one finds a play overwhelming with meaning, metaphor, fairytale. The story now: There’s a troll in the woods who makes noise, or is he a Pied Piper who lures children away and never gives some of them back, or is he indescribable, magic and powerful, wonderful and terrifying? He lives in his own paradise (Jerusalem of the title is based on the William Blake poem, made into a popular English hymn, which envisions mythic England where Jesus walked.) He knows all of your secrets, but there’s no threat about him, only happiness and fun, but careful! Because if you threaten him, he’ll bring out his arsenal, and what he has is stronger than what you’ve got because he knows everything about you. He’ll freeze you to the spot with what he knows. It amazed you when you were a child, but now that you’re an adult, he’s your greatest fear. You try to keep your children away, using the excuse that kids shouldn’t be drinking at their age, not like you were, but that’s a surface lie. Beneath it is the fear that your children will grow up to be like you, to be as terrified as you are of brazen honesty and things that should never be said about who you used to be and the things that frightened you then. The missing girl appears dressed as a battered angel, her costume in tatters that wars with her innocence as Rooster gives her a place to retain it and the rest of the world strives to strip it away. She’s nearing the age where she’ll have to decide if she’ll be loyal to Rooster or go against him.

Rooster tells stories of gaining promises of protection from giants, of being born with a cape, a dagger, and teeth, tells them with such vigor that even as adults his remaining friends are hesitant, frightened even, to disbelieve. When one dares call him on his bluff, Rooster hangs back knowing the bravado won’t last long, and indeed it doesn’t. The young man falls back under Rooster’s spell immediately. For now, the girl hides in the woods, needing the innocence and shelter he offers. But Rooster has to fear the ones who don’t feel his magic anymore, those who see something threatening in it. As the play ends, he calls upon the giants sworn to protect him. The curtain falls to the sounds of their lumbering feet drawing near to smite his enemies.

Mark Rylance won his second Tony Award for playing Rooster and a slew of UK awards that I am too lazy to look up. I think a good many people were there because of that and didn’t like the play. I’m not sure why, but it seems to be one that people either love or hate. I loved it and haven’t stopped thinking about it since.