Jez Butterworth - Jersualem PDF

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JEZ BUTTERWORTH – JERUSALEM

Is a play written in the new millennium.  can be considered an invaluable instrument for examining with troubles of contemporary Britain. Indeed, today human being frail and conflicted ever. British dramatist show that they perfectly rough this mobility. People emotional stability and quality of their human relationship are indeed deep and determined. Traditional notions of collective identity and the stability of nation in itself, seems to be indout. Jez Butterworth was born in 1969 and grew up in Saint Osbourne’s workforshire. SUMMARY

The play begins with Phaedra, a fifteen year old girl dressed as a fairy singing in allusion that Jerusalem has been built on dark grounds. We are brought to St. George's Day, which is also the day of the local county fair and a woman Fawcett and man, Parsons come to Johnny 'Rooster' Byron's mobile home in order to serve him with a notice of eviction. Byron does not come out, instead pretends to have a dog inside growling at them. They leave the eviction notice. Byron comes out to make himself a breakfast of milk, vodka, speed and an egg which he guzzles down. The rest of the scene we are introduced to multiple characters that we learn come to Johnny in order to party and get drugs. Ginger, Lee--who is leaving for Australia the next day at 6am, the Professor who is still searching for his dead wife, and Tanya and Pea who crawl out from underneath Johnny's trailer covered in badger feces. We learn that Phaedra the Queen of last years fair has run away after being rejected from entering a bar a few nights before. Byron's mobile home in the forest is a place where the youth of the community come to party, which he allows. Wesley, who operates a local bar comes to Byron's camper in order to tell him that the police are gearing up to evict him forcefully if they have to, and everyone knows it. There have been town hall meetings where people have given their testimony about why Johnny should be evicted. We are then introduced to Marky, Johnny's six year old son and Dawn, the mother of Johnny's child. Johnny has forgotten that he was meant to take Marky to the fair today, and Dawn must take him. Which she does but not before she does a couple of lines of cocaine. After Dawn leaves we learn from Lee that there are ley lines running through the forest, and then Johnny challenges everyone to a game of Trivial Pursuit for money. Johnny answers all of the questions, sometimes before they are even asked. We learn that Johnny once was a motorcycle stuntman and broke every bone in his body, he even died trying to jump semi trucks. The coroners pronounced him dead and even covered him with a sheet. He then got up and walked his broken body to buy himself a beer. Johnny then tells everyone that he once met a 90 foot giant who built stonehenge. And the giant left him a drum, said that if he ever needed help to play it and all of the ancient giants would come to help him. Ginger doesn't believe him, but when Johnny tells him he's sitting on the drum he dares him to bang it. Ginger won't, but Lee wants to. Troy, Phaedra's stepfather then shows up before he can and demands to know where Phaedra is. Johnny tells him he doesn't know, but Tony believes she's staying with him. Johnny then recalls a story about how Troy used to come around until they did a ceremony with cards with devils on them and wine which scared Tony so bad he never came back. Troy then counters Johnny's tale with one about how Johnny had passed out and everyone started pissing all over him and in his mouth, and Davey, one of Johnny's friends filmed the whole thing.

And, everyone that has been hanging with Johnny has seen the photos and no one has said anything. Johnny goes quiet and walks off. We learn the story is true. Lee and Davey return later, at 5 o'clock. Lee is there to apologize to Johnny, but he doesn't come to the door. Johnny then appears and Wesley comes back from working at the bar to raise hell about how he is being treated by the people he works with. Once he clears off, Fawcett and Parsons return with their video camera in order to give Johnny one last chance to leave peacefully before the police come down and evict him by force. Johnny won't go, he burns their eviction notice. They leave, and the police are preparing their batons to seize the property from Johnny. Phaedra exits from Johnny's mobile home and wants him to dance with her. She is only going to be Queen of the fair for another five minutes. Johnny initially refuses, but then agrees. As he is dancing with Phaedra, Troy appears with two men, a blow torch and a brand. They take Johnny into the trailer against his will and brand an 'x' on each of his cheeks and leave. Ginger saw Johnny being dragged inside and ran away, only to return after they branded him. Johnny makes it clear to Ginger that they are not friends and Ginger leaves. Marky appears and Johnny brings his son near in order to tell him some very important things. He says that he has a rare blood type, Romany blood, the rarest. And, doctors pay him 600 pounds every six weeks to get this blood from him. He tells him this so that if he is every in a pinch or his back's up against a wall he will have that to rely on. Johnny then tells his son as much as he can about life, that "School is a lie. Prison's a waste of time. Girls are wondrous...Don't listen to no one and nothing but what your own heart bids. Lie. Cheat. Steal. Fight to the death. Don't give up..." He hugs Marky and tells him to go find his mother. Alone, Johnny begins to pour fuel on the mobile home to burn it. he then, in a ritual, begins to call out a curse upon any person who is about to take his blood. He calls on every one of his ancestors to rise up from the forest with him as he begins to relentlessly bang on the drum from the giant. THEMES 1) Destruction of nature: This theme presents itself as a through-line in the play. Rooster has been given eviction notices, as the community is demanding he leave so that a new community of homes can be built. For this to happen, the forest has to be cut down, and with it, anything that belongs to the forest including Johnny 'Rooster' Byron. It is a parable about people who seek to destroy what they don't understand. 2) Secrets: The theme of secrets is held throughout the play in different way. First, the people of the community who are seeking to evict Johnny from his caravan know him, and many know him in the biblical sense. Rooster implies that they want him gone in order to keep their secrets rather than keep him around, a man who has participated in their deceits (including but not limited to adultery). Second, Johnny seems to have a secret that no one can quite put their finger on. He tells Dawn to look into his eyes in order to look for something specific to tell her who he is, which she sees and it is something tangible she finds. Byron then tells of meeting a giant and having a drum to bang from him to call on them in a time of trouble; also Rooster's card seance with Troy when he was younger and finally Byron calling out a curse upon anyone who destroys him. There are power to give live and take it within the secrets of this play. 3) The safety of children: Byron is seen throughout the play with multiple teenagers who hang with him to party and do drugs. Rooster doesn't want them to be there, calling them rats at times, but also implies that these kids are safer with him than they are at their own homes. This theme is

razor sharp in the relationship with Phaedra, a 15 year old girl who has run away, and her stepfather, Troy, who it is implied abuses her. Johnny has kept Phaedra hidden in his caravan from Troy. ANALYSIS The play begins with Fawcett and Parsons coming to Johnny's caravan in order to serve a notice of eviction to him. We see that Johnny 'Rooster' is clearly not a normal man as he enjoys a breakfast of milk, vodka, speed, and an egg. Butterworth creates a portrait of what society deems acceptable. Byron allows kids to drink and do drugs with him, he sleeps with housewives and provides drugs to anyone who needs them. On top of that, though, is a society that wants to evict him out of the forest in which he has lived for 20 years in order to build a community of homes. It becomes an uncertain tale of right and wrong as everyone is doing the wrong things, but when a community of people gather together they are capable of taking what they want. What they are taking is far more than a plot of land, the symbolism in their action to evict Rooster and build a community of homes has to do with the destruction of nature. How there is great beauty and mystery that lies within the forest, but people don't care for that, they want progress; more more more and they are going to get it. In addition to this, Butterworth asks the question as to where our children are safest: at home or out in the forest with Byron? The interpretations of this can be vast, but the playwright is calling into question our values as a society and our ability to look truthfully at what is happening around us. The character of Phaedra represents how kids are not protected in their own homes anymore, and thus turn to a place that seems safe to them, even if by all standards it isn't. The through-line of magic and power in the play relates to the lack of understanding as to where we have come from. We are moving forward, bulldozing forest after forest when we have no idea what the history of the land is, and the value that it holds....