Jerusalem wins praise on Broadway

Jez Butterworth’s play, set in Wiltshire woodland and rooted in rural Englishness, is likely to become a smash hit in America Hang out the red-cross flags, round up the morris dancers: a play so rooted in rural Englishness that some feared it might need subtitles even for Londoners looks likely to be a smash hit on Broadway. Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem, a transfer of the Royal Court production, has received a rave review in the New York Times which reads like a publicist’s dream. Although the newspaper’s reviews are seen as deal-breakers for Broadway, its write-up has proved only part of a roar of critical acclaim for the show. Entertainment Weekly said “Jerusalem triggers goosebumps”, and New York Time Out wrote: “Anyone who cares about thrilling, world-class theatre must see Jerusalem.” Audience members were equally overwhelmed; tweets about the show include: “Go worship at the feet of Mr. Rylance. Run don’t walk”; “Mark Rylance in Jerusalem is probably the best stage performance I have ever witnessed”; “grand scale theater, mark rylance a force of nature”; and “a thrilling, mind-blowing, gorgeous reminder of why theatre rocks harder than anything else”. Dominic Cooke, artistic director of the Royal Court, was overwhelmed at the news. “We could never have predicted when Jerusalem opened in 2009 that it would go on such an incredible journey, from the Royal Court to the West End to Broadway,” he said. “Jez’s play has captured people’s hearts, and we are just thrilled for … the whole Jerusalem team that it has translated to Broadway so well.” The play, with echoes of Shakespeare’s greenwood comedies, where social norms are ripped to shreds, is set in a Wiltshire woodland where Johnny “Rooster” Byron, a swaggering, mesmerising and thoroughly unreliable dropout holds a druggy, drink-sodden and anarchic court. A Prince Hal for outcasts and Glastonbury new agers, well beyond the fringes of Middle England decencies, he defiantly claims his share of Englishness. Although the Royal Court production proved a sellout hit in London – Michael Billington called it “a perfectly judged production” in his Guardian review – and swept up awards by the armful, many worried that the play, set on St George’s Day, might prove baffling to an American audience. It would be a foreign-language play even in Berkshire: “I leave Wiltshire, my ears pop”, as one of the characters remarks. Billed as “a comic contemporary vision of rural life in England’s green and pleasant land”, the transfer to Broadway’s Music Box, with half the original cast (including Mark Rylance as Rooster and Mackenzie Crook as his sidekick), looks likely to be the hit of the season, in a run currently due to end in July. In his New York Times review of Jerusalem – headed “This Blessed Plot, This Trailer, This England” – Ben Brantley, who also gave the play a rave review when it opened in London, admitted he had had doubts about the transfer. “I was apprehensive about the show on Broadway. Jerusalem, you see, is partly a state-of-the-nation play, the nation being Britain. And the mind-set of its characters is definitely British provincial, or as provincial as the age of television and the internet allows. Yet the New York production – which retains half its original British cast and has been revised for clarity of cultural references – turns out to be rousingly accessible on these shores.” Butterworth, whose earlier play Parlour Song was also a New York hit in 2008, credited his reincarnation as a Somerset pig farmer as the inspiration for his recent string of hit plays. He told Mark Lawson: “I think the problem was that, when I lived in London, I was just too distracted. Looking back, I spent a lot of time sitting in pubs when I should have been perfecting my playwriting.” British hits on Broadway War Horse: The National Theatre’s award-winning adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s children’s novel opened a fortnight ago on Broadway to rave reviews. Billy Elliot: The movie about a boy who yearns to dance, set against the backdrop of the 1984 miners’ strike, was an even bigger hit as a stage musical, and is still selling out on Broadway after three years. Frost/Nixon: Peter Morgan’s 2006 play based on David Frost’s interviews with Richard Nixon, originally a London hit at the tiny Donmar Warehouse, was a success on Broadway and then a hit movie. Cats: The musical with no human characters by Andrew Lloyd Webber was the fourth longest running West End musical, from 1981 to 2002, and the second longest Broadway show, from 1982 to 2000. … and British misses on Broadway Enron: Lucy Prebbles’s bitter satire on American capitalism, a major hit for the Royal Court in London, closed after two weeks on Broadway last year. Bombay Dreams: Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 2004 Bollywood musical lasted two years in London but only eight months on Broadway despite major rewrites. Chess: The 1986 musical about cold war politics played out in international tournaments, with music by Abba, ran for three years in London but just 37 performances on Broadway. Carrie: A bizarre 1988 RSC musical based on the Stephen King novel and movie had mixed reviews at Stratford-upon-Avon and survived for just five shows after the Broadway reviews. Broadway New York Theatre United States Maev Kennedy guardian.co.uk

Posted by on April 22, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.