Butterworth Jerusalem

1. Auflage 2012
ISBN: 978-1-78001-015-1
Verlag: Nick Hern Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 128 Seiten

Reihe: NHB Modern Plays

Jez Butterworth's hugely acclaimed, prize-winning play - a comic, contemporary vision of life in England's green and pleasant land. On St George's Day, the morning of the local country fair, Johnny 'Rooster' Byron, local waster and Lord of Misrule, is a wanted man. The council officials want to serve him an eviction notice, his son wants to be taken to the fair, a vengeful father wants to give him a serious kicking, and a motley crew of mates wants his ample supply of drugs and alcohol. Jerusalem premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in July 2009 in a production directed by Ian Rickson and starring Mark Rylance. It transferred to the Apollo Theatre in the West End in January 2010, and played on Broadway in 2011. Jez Butterworth's play won the Evening Standard Best Play Award and the Critics Circle and Whatsonstage.com awards for Best New Play.

Jez Butterworth is one of the UK's leading playwrights. His plays include: Mojo (Royal Court Theatre, London, 1995; West End, 2013); The Night Heron (Royal Court, 2002); The Winterling (Royal Court, 2006); Parlour Song (Atlantic Theater, New York, 2008; Almeida Theatre, London, 2009); Jerusalem (Royal Court, 2009; West End, 2010; New York, 2011); The River (Royal Court, 2012); The Ferryman (Royal Court and West End, 2017) and The Hills of California (West End, 2024). Mojo won the George Devine Award, the Olivier Award for Best Comedy and the Writers' Guild, Critics' Circle and Evening Standard Awards for Most Promising Playwright. Jerusalem won the Best Play Award at the Critics' Circle, Evening Standard and WhatsOnStage.com Awards, and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play. The Ferryman won the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Play, and the Critics' Circle, Olivier and WhatsOnStage Awards for Best New Play, as well as the 2019 Tony Award for Best Play. His screenwriting credits include Fair Game (2010), Get On Up (2014), Edge of Tomorrow (2014), Black Mass (2015), Spectre (2015), Ford v Ferrari (2019), and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023). For TV, he created and wrote the comedy series Mammals for Amazon Studios, and created the historical fantasy drama Britannia for Sky and Amazon Prime. In 2007, he won the E.M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2019 he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Author photo by Steve Schofield

Autoren/Hrsg.

Butterworth, Jez

Leseproben

ACT ONE

England at midnight. A clearing in a moonlit wood. At the back of the clearing stands an old forty-foot mobile home. The deafening bass pumps from within, and from speakers on the roof. People dancing wildly, with abandon. Through the windows we can glimpse more people dancing. They’re shouting to be heard, but we can’t hear what.

Blackout. Music continues, until…

Birdsong.

Now we can see that the mobile home stands in a fairly permanent state. The old Wessex flag (a golden Wyvern dragon against a red background) flies from one end. An old rusted metal railway sign screwed to the mobile home reads ‘Waterloo’.

A porch stands out front – an old mouldy couch stands on the porch deck. Lots of junk. An old hand-cranked air-raid siren. Stuck to the porch post is an old submarine klaxon. An old record player, with a stand-alone speaker. An old American-style fridge. Stacks of old LPs.

Underneath, a chicken coop. Chopped wood under a lean-to. Rubbish. Empty bottles. A car seat, a swing. An old windchime. A garden table, and four red Coca-Cola plastic chairs. A rusty Swingball set.

In the middle of the copse, the remains of a smashed television.

A man, PARSONS, in a suit with a reflective jacket and case enters the copse. He takes a photograph of the smashed television. Another of the mess on the table. He gingerly picks his way to the front door.

He is followed by a woman, FAWCETT, dressed the same. With a clipboard. She surveys the clearing.

FAWCETT. Time.

PARSONS. Eight fifty-nine and fifty-five. Six. Seven. Nine o’clock.

She nods. He knocks on the door.

Mr Byron? Mr John Byron? Johnny Byron? (Knocks.) John Rooster Byron.

FAWCETT (rebuking). Parsons.

PARSONS (apologetic). Ma’am.

FAWCETT. Stand back.

He does.

Mr Byron? (She knocks.) Mr Byron? Would you care to step outside for a moment? (Pause. Knocks.) Mr Byron? (Pause.) We know you’re in there, Byron. Would you give us a moment of your time? Would you like to step outside and face the music for me?

Silence. A distant church bell rings nine. She touches up her lipstick. PARSONS removes a digital video camera from his bag.

Ready?

PARSONS. Rolling.

FAWCETT. Linda Fawcett, Kennet and Avon Senior Community Liaison Officer. 9 a.m., 23rd April. Serving Notice F-17003 in contravention of the Public Health Act of 1878, and the Pollution Control and Local Government Order 1974.

Loud barking can be heard from inside.

PARSONS. I never knew he had –

FAWCETT. He doesn’t.

PARSONS. But –

FAWCETT. That is not a dog, Parsons.

The barking gets louder. More ferocious.

Very funny, Mr Byron. Extremely amusing.

Louder still. Snarling.

PARSONS. Are you sure?

FAWCETT. Shut up, Parsons.

PARSONS. Rolling –

Plaintive howling throughout. A hatch opens on the top of the mobile home. A head appears, wearing a Second World War helmet and goggles, with loudhailer, like out of the top of a tank. Barking. The camera pans up to it. It disappears sharply.

FAWCETT. Under Section 62 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act, supported by Order 24, the County Court ruling which was heard in Salisbury County Court on 12th March –

The loudhailer appears out of a window at the side of the vehicle to the blind side of the camera and barks over:

– and also employs the use of Order 113 of the Rules of the County Court. With the aforementioned notice, Kennet and Avon include a brochure outlining Unauthorised Encampment Policy, the Strategy and Partnership Section, issue date December 2002, reference 4.06.0001006.

She removes a piece of paper and a staple gun. She goes over to the front door and solemnly staples the page to the door. Four, five times.

(Calling out through the crack in the door.) Goodbye, Mr Byron. And see you tomorrow at 9 a.m. sharp, sir. (She turns.) Parsons.

She leads the way.

PARSONS (to himself). I’ll say this. It’s a lovely spot.

They leave. A man of about fifty, JOHNNY, sticks his head out the top of the trailer. He has the loudhailer.

JOHNNY. Testing. Testing, one two. This is Rooster Byron’s dog, Shep, informing Kennet and Avon Council to go fuck itself. Woof woof!

The hatch shuts. Impossibly fast, the front door opens and the same man appears. Wiry. Weathered; drinker’s mug. Bare chest. Helmet. Goggles. Loudhailer. Despite a slight limp, he moves with the balance of a dancer, or animal.

Hear ye, hear ye. With the power invested in me by Rooster Johnny Byron – who can’t be here on account of the fact he’s in Barbados this week with Kate Moss – I, his faithful hound Shep, hereby instruct Kennet and Avon to tell Bren Glewstone, and Ros Taylor, and her twat son, and all those sorry cunts on the New Estate, Rooster Byron ain’t going nowhere. Happy St George’s Day. Now kiss my beggar arse, you Puritans!

In one practised move he lets off an unexpected airhorn blare into the loudhailer, a long blast. And with that he hangs the loudhailer on a hook (like he does this every day), lifts his goggles, throws the needle on the record player, flicks the ‘V’s in their general departing direction. He turns and heads across the clearing, just as a crackly 45 of ‘Somebody Done Changed the Lock On My Door’ by Champion Jack Dupree crackles out of the two speakers strapped to the top of the mobile home.

He yawns his way over to a trough, takes off his helmet, scoops up water and pours it over his face. Shakes himself awake. No good. He kneels and sticks his head in the trough.

Heads back across. Stops. Picks something up. Holds it up to the light. A dropped spliff. He pops it behind his ear. Opens the chicken coop, fishes around for an egg.

On the table on the deck, he picks up a pint glass from several. It’s got about ten cigarette butts floating in two inches of golden gunk. He tosses it. Opens the fridge. Takes out a pint of milk. Sniffs it. Pours half the milk in. Takes a half-bottle of vodka out of his arse pocket, pours half of it into the glass. From the goggle-strap on his helmet he takes a wrap of speed, rips it in two, sprinkles it in. Cracks the egg into the glass, swirls it and drinks it down in one. He lets out a long, feral bellow, from the heart of the earth.

He lights the spliff, and stalks across the clearing, doing steps, and ends up over to the side of the clearing as the song ends, pissing up against a tree, his back to us.

I dreamt all night of waterfalls. (Beat.) Riches. Fame. A glimpse of God’s tail… Comes a time you’d swap it all for a solid golden piss on English soil.

Distant drumming starts. Accordions. A hundred distant voices sing:

VOICES.
With the merry ring, adieu the merry spring,
For summer is a-come unto day,
How happy is the little bird that merrily doth sing,
In the merry morning of May.

Unite and unite,
For summer is a-come unto day,
And wither we are going we all unite,
In the merry morning of May!

Enter GINGER, from behind the trailer, singing:

GINGER.
Unite and unite,
For summer is a-come unto day,
And wither we are going we all unite,
In the merry morning of May!

Morning, Rooster!

JOHNNY. Morning, Ginger.

GINGER starts robotics, moonwalking and doing ‘the crouch’ all at the same time.

GINGER (rapping).
It’s the fair, it’s the Flintock Fair.
It’s the motherfucking Flintock Fair.
It’s the fair, it’s the Flintock Fair.
It’s shit. But you love it.

He puts his hand to his ear and air-scratches on an air-turntable, he spins himself round 360-degrees. Instantly stops. Looks around.

Hang on, stop. Stop the bus. What happened? What happened here?

JOHNNY. Where? Nothing.

GINGER. Bollocks. What happened?

JOHNNY. What?

GINGER. Don’t give me that.

Beat.

JOHNNY. It was a gathering.

GINGER. Don’t look like a gathering.

JOHNNY. Was impromptu. Few people showed up. Snowballed.

GINGER. Why didn’t you call?

JOHNNY. Look, don’t start. I’ve got a throbber on.

GINGER. Or text me. Never leave a man on the ground…

JOHNNY. I thought you was busy.

GINGER. Who said… (Stops.) Fucking… (Stops.) Sex and the City, mate. Fuckin’ Jools Holland then three hours of Pacman on my phone. Not what you’d call a classic. I thought we was mates.

JOHNNY. We are mates.

GINGER. Then pick up the phone. Or text me.

JOHNNY. Ginger –

GINGER. Well, that’s that. I’ve missed a party. That’s one I’ll never get back. Cheers. I’m just saying. Cheers....