Mark Rylance triumphs again on Broadway

`Jerusalem` is a metaphor for the way of life to come in this impressive play.

New York: It`s clear from Jez Butterworth`s ‘Jerusalem’ that all is not well in ‘England`s green and pleasant land.’

Young men are labouring at boring, soul-killing jobs in offices or abattoirs. Developers are greedily building homes that eat away at the woods. And the country itself seems to have lost its swagger, its history, its very English-ness. Not to worry, lads. In the west of the country, in a village called Flintlock, is Johnny ‘Rooster’ Byron, the enemy of homogenization. He`s a drunken sprite, a Shakespearean Falstaff living in the woods in a beaten-down trailer. Played by an utterly riveting Mark Rylance, Byron is that nonconformist weirdo out on the edge of town who seems to lure disaffected young people with all-night raves, booze and crazy stories. Byron sees the modern world and refuses it. He`s an enemy of hypocrisy, a myth-teller, a drug peddler and a trickster. He`s the kind of guy who slaughters a live pig in the parking lot of a pub on kiddie day — with a flare gun. "I`m magic, me," he says. "I got X-ray vision. I`m Spider-Man, me." But Byron, a former daredevil biker now doing odd jobs, is in trouble at the beginning of "Jerusalem," which opened on Broadway Thursday at The Music Box. The town council wants to evict him from his illegal squat so they can continue the housing sprawl, and he is suspected of having something to do with a 15-year-old girl`s disappearance. Might he be just a "dangerous nutter"? Rylance is joined by Mackenzie Crook as Ginger, a burned-out wannabe DJ, who idolizes Byron but is a little too uncool and much old to be an easy part of his "bucolic alcoholic frolic." Other standouts in the 16-member cast include John Gallagher Jr. as a teen hoping to escape this nasty life by running to Australia, and Alan David as a comfortably clueless professor. It`s rare on Broadway to get two bites of so tasty an apple in one season, but Rylance has done exactly that, following up his tremendous performance in a revival of David Hirson`s ‘La Bete’ at the very same theatre where ‘Jerusalem’ is playing. Both roles — Byron and Valere, the buffoonish street performer of the previous work — turn Rylance into a slightly disturbed windbag and yet a needy one, too. Both are fantasists and clownish and hysterical. Neither performance can be missed. Byron is certainly larger-than-life but not cartoonish. Butterworth reveals more to this Pied Piper, such as a 6-year-old son and an estranged lover now immune to his charms. Byron is also hiding a little vanity underneath that bluster, as when alone he pulls out a pair of shiny reading glasses to inspect the eviction notice. The action here happens during a St. George`s Day fete and Byron has only a few hours before he is evicted by force. But he will not be distracted — though Rylance shows flashes of anger that will come to a boil at the end — and continues drinking, drugging, urging rebellion, and telling stories about meeting a 90-foot giant who built Stonehenge or being kidnapped by traffic wardens or being born with a bullet between his teeth. "Bang your gavels. Issue your warrants. You can`t make the wind blow," he tells two council officials who have come to warn him that the bulldozers are waiting. The English love this play, but that`s not too surprising since it`s an elegy for the disappearing way of life in rural England. They also love Rylance. (The latest version of ‘La Bete’ did better in London than Broadway). The title of the new play comes from a hymn, which has become a surrogate English anthem, sung at the opening of the work by a fairy. The words to the song, including the reference to a "green and pleasant land," were written by Byron — Lord Byron, that is. ‘Jerusalem’ clocks in at over three hours — with two intermissions — and is a marathon for Rylance, who does a headstand into a bucket of water at the beginning and then stumbles about, getting into fights, smoking drugs, drinking speed-laced beer and hysterically cocking his snoot at everyone the entire time. Director Ian Rickson might have made a few cuts to keep the running time down, particularly in the second act, which lags at times. Butterworth`s script, often lyrical and always rooted, also has made no allowances for an American audience, so brush up on British slang for such drug-related terms as "snafflers" and "whizz." Scenic design by Ultz includes beer cans and a lot of real things on stage — real three trunks, real chickens in a coop, a real turtle and a real goldfish struggling in a bag of water, which has been brought from the fair as a peace offering to Byron from a drug-addled teen. It`s also a metaphor for the way of life to come in this impressive play. Bureau Report