Please read the prompt below and read the article links as well. Also need to talk about comparable themes from plays such as “Between Riverside and Crazy”, “The Vibrator Pay”, and “The Goat, or Who is Sylvia”.
List some of the recurring motifs that we’ve seen in many of the plays this semester:
addiction
religion
social and economic challenges for unskilled workers (Britain’s specifically from 2009 on….) and the uneducated
Johnny as similar to the ‘grieving despot king’ of “Between Riverside…”
What else?
Consider Ayad Akhtar’s comment regarding the long rich art form that is English theatre? The more ‘ritualized space’ and the differences of performance style. How do you think the American reception of this play might differ from the British? Is it universal in its themes and content? What most grabbed you? What do you take away? Are we as American theatregoers “starved for a sense of the mythic”? As is stated in the review below?
Resource:
Read: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-reviews/8833062/Jerusalem-Apollo-Theatre-review.html
Excerpt:“We theatergoers too are starved for a sense of the mythic, for performances we can talk about with glassy-eyed rapture in the years to come. Mr. Butterworth, Mr. Rickson and Mr. Rylance have provided us with that opportunity. Except in this case the mythic is no mere myth.”
Read the playbill article:
https://www.playbill.com/article/a-guide-to-jerusalems-cultural-allusions-and-iconic-references-com-179183
Considering what the playwright says about all of the possible ‘meaning(s)’ and the fact that he didn’t intend them when writing. We are left with the rich, specific, gorgeous language and dimensional characters in a hyper realistic play rife with potential for theatricality! Describe a moment that stands out to you as potential for bold theatricality.
Example: the song – or distant drumming or voices – that frequently come from the fair(?) could also be in his mind/ears… expressionistic and theatrical as well as realistic.