"One of the most exciting new plays in ages" - New York Times
"Jez Butterowrth's gorgeous, expansive new play keeps coming at its audience in unpredictable gusts, rolling from comic to furious, from winsome to bawdy" - Observer
A Comic, contemporary vision of rural life in England's green and pleasant land.
On the morning of the local county fair, Johnny Byron is a wanted man. Local officials want to serve him an eviction notice, his son wants his full attention, and his motley crew of friends wants his ample supply of booze...
After its 2009 premiere at the Royal Court Theatre, London, Jerusalem won the Evening Standard Award for Best Play in 2009 and transferred to the West End in 2010. It opened on Broadway in April 2011 at the Music Box Theatre, with Mark Rylance reprising his award-winning performance as Byron.
Jez Butterworth is the author of The River, Mojo, The Night Heron, The Winterling, Parlour Song and Jerusalem. He has won numerous awards for his work, including the E. M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in Somerset, England.
@ObserverUK’s culture section - arts, books, politics, tech, ideas. BSME Culture Mag of Year 2018. Runner-up, supplement of year, British Press Awards 2018 & 19
You Ask Mark Rylance the Questions! His Rooster in Jerusalem was "the closest thing to magic" that playwright Jez Butterworth had ever seen. We are interviewing the great actor and director Mark Rylance on your behalf! Send us your questions here.... https://t.co/UkCuiQefhb
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‘Rooster’s liberty, his entitlement to the land, stems from an ancient concept of freedom to roam; yet it rests, uneasily, on a sense of white English identity as having an intrinsic claim to the territory’ @CasparSalmon reviews Jez Butterworth's Jerusalem https://t.co/XuorXApvE1
FOUR STARS: "A welcome blast of bracing fresh air. Tender, touching, and blessed with both a ribald humour and a haunting sense of the mystery of things." - Charles Spencer, Daily Telegraph
FOUR STARS: "Jerusalem is a bold, ebullient and often hilarious State-of-England or (almost) State-of-Olde-England play." - Benedict Nightingale, The Times
"One of the most exciting new plays in ages." - Ben Brantley, New York Times
"Magnificent... a great frame-busting play that still exists solidly within a conventional framework. Jerusalem could have been written in almost any year from the 1920s onward. Yet this work takes you places -- distant, out-of-time places -- that well-made plays seldom do. And it thinks big -- transcendently big -- in ways contemporary drama seldom dares." - Ben Brantley, New York Times
"Jez Butterworth's gorgeous expansive new play keeps coming at its audience in unpredictable gusts, rolling from comic to furious, from winsome to bawdy." - Susannah Clapp, The Observer
FIVE STARS: "An invigorating, yelping, defiant portrait of 21st century shires England." - Quentin Letts, Daily Mail
FOUR STARS: "A wonderful, rollicking, dark comedy about contemporary life in rural England." - Sarah Hemming, Financial Times
FIVE STARS: "Hilarious and/or gripping throughout." - Caroline McGinn, Time Out London
"Jez Butterworth's Jerusalem is one big, messy, exciting, long play." - Robert Hurwitt, San Francisco Chronicle