Jerusalem - by Jez Butterworth (Paperback)

About the Book

Winner of Best Play, 2009 Evening Standard Awards, Best New Play, Critics Circle Awards, and Best New Play, Whatsonstage.com Awards.

Book Synopsis

"An instant modern classic" - Daily Telegraph

"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.

Review Quotes

"An instant modern classic" - Charles Spencer, Daily Telegraph

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

About the Author

Plays include Mojo, The Night Heron, The Winterling and Jerusalem. Mojo, The Night Heron and Parlour Song have been produced in New York in acclaimed productions at Atlantic Theater Company. He has written and directed two films: Mojo (1998) and Birthday Girl (2002). In 2009 he wrote and produced Fair Game. In 2014 he co-wrote the screenplays for Edge of Tomorrow and Get on Up. He is writing the screenplay for London Calling, about the British punk rock band, the Clash. He has won two Evening Standard Awards and Olivier, Critics' Circle, Writers' Guild and George Devine Awards. In 2007, he received the E.M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.