Exiting Jerusalem

Exiting Jerusalem

By

Carrie Griffiths

Disclaimer: All publicly recognisable music, characters, settings, pictures etc., are the property of their respective owners. The characters and plot are the property of the original author. The author is in no way associated with any media franchise's owners, creators, or producers. No copyright infringement is intended.

SC1. EXT. THE WOODS – DAY

Following the events of Jez Butterworths ‘Jerusalem’.

The sound of voices shouting in the woods and the roar and crackle of fire. Orange and red-light flashes over the top of the stage.

Centre stage, a burning and faded flag of St George is shown on a giant cracked TV screen. The stage proscenium is charred. A smoke machine blows a low white cloud across the stage at ankle height.

A group gather at the woodland entrance, silently listening as they stand with their backs to the audience beside a BBC Points West news van.

Rolling drums build to a crescendo, and several gunshots are fired. Then silence.

DAVEY

He died as he lived, with blinding hatred for council wankers and the fuzz. He gave up that land over his dead body, poor bastard.

Markey runs from the woods, breathless and exhilarated.

MARKY

Mummy, I met a giant! He was huge, and he said he was on his way to take my dad home to the old country. He told me to run on home, that he’d be back for me someday, but I wasn’t afraid, mummy. Daddy told me not to be scared. He said I’d got Byron blood, and it's worth six-hundred pounds.

Dawn kneels before him, hugging him tightly.

LEE

So, the chick becomes the rooster.

GINGER

Well, fuck me, the old cunt lives on in this one. I thought he’d finally met his bloody Waterloo, but here he is, large as life and half the size.

Ginger nods at Marky knowingly.

PROFESSOR

Nothing could equal the splendour and terror of the scene. The clashing of swords, the clattering of musketry, the hissing of balls, and shouts and clamours produced a sound, jarring and confounding the senses, as if hell and the Devil were in evil contention.

Nobody listens to the Professors speech, drawn to the child instead.

MARKY

When I grow up, I'm gonna jump fifty buses, just like dad did.

DAWN

Your dad was a bloody drunk, a coke head and a gyppo. You'll be nothing like him if I have anything to do with it.

MARKY

My daddy was a hero!

A beat.

Dawn takes her son by the shoulders and looks deep into his eyes, shuddering at what she sees.

A beat.

She takes a step away from him, trying to mask her fear.

DAWN

Anything you say, son. Let's get going. Andy's waiting on us.

MARKY

Alright, mum, we can sell my blood, and then can I get a motorbike for my birthday.

Marky nods sagely as if he knows a secret none of the others do.

DAWN

The bastards not yet cold in his grave, and look what he's left me with, bloody mini-me!

DAVEY

You’re not wrong, love. Christ, old Johnny’s created a monster.

LEE

You mark my words, mate. Once that kid hits ten, he'll be drinking, shagging and snorting his way through this town like his father before him.

GINGER

Yeah, wild these pikey kids are, fucking tearaways.

Dawn narrows her eyes at them, and they cough, avoiding her angry gaze.

DAVEY

Yeah, now he's gone where’ll we get our party favours?

GINGER

Fuck knows. I got 'em from him my whole life, couldn't even tell you if there was another bastard dodgy enough to ask in this shit-pit village.

PHAEDRA

S’pose I should head home; I’ve got nowhere else to go.

GINGER

Yeah, your dad beat the living crap out of Rooster, I'm no grass, but he deserves to go down for that, the fucking animal.

PHAEDRA

It’s no worse than what he does to me.

Silence as all but Dawn stare at the ground.

DAWN

Phaedra, love, come home with me for a bit. I’ll give you your tea, see if we can’t sort this mess out, eh? You too, Professor.

Phaedra nods, looking afraid but also relieved. She glances at the woods as if tempted to run. The Professor seems bewildered but follows.

GINGER

Haven’t you got a plane to catch, mate?

LEE

Shit! Ah, well, there’s always tomorrow.

SC2. EXT – A CLEARING – DAY.

Stage left: The audience hears voices as the group drifts away.

Stage Right: Johnny’s ghost appears at the edge of the clearing. He wears a black cloak while leaning against a tree, banging the drum of his ancestors, and watching them walk away.

JOHNNY

Mother, what is this dark place?

The ghost of Johnny’s mother stands behind him along with the spirits of his antecedents.

JOHNNY’S MOTHER

‘Tis England, my boy. England.

Fade to black, with music:We are the Village Green Preservation Society, Kate Rusby’s version of The Kinks.

………………………

In Julia Boll’s (2012) article for the University of Edinburgh, she describes Johnny as a homo sacer,

“a scapegoat who has evolved to the person who has become a taboo…the one whose life is sacred, defined purely by being excluded from the polis and stripped of all civil rights” (2012).

The homo sacer is a sacred man, banished from the main group, a person who upsets the order of things, who breaks taboos and encourages the community to look at themselves in a mirror.

The townsfolk do not like what they see, nor the fact Johnny is so shrewd. This is no clearer than when Johnny asks Ms Fawcett, “How many houses are you building? Who gets the contract? Who gets the kickbacks?” (2009. p.98). Johnny is the archetypal folk devil, dangerous in his capacity to tempt others into breaking the rules and mimic his behaviour. He knows everyone and everything about them. The townsfolk want him destroyed to rid the town of his influence.

The scene begins with gunshots being heard in the background, leaving the audience with the assumption that the protagonist was shot by the police because there was no way he’d give up his little patch of forever England without a fight to the death. He died as he lived, hard and recklessly. The scene consists only of characters who seem to care for Johnny, apart from Davey, who is there as a voyeur. His friends understood him enough to know he wouldn’t give up easily, which is reflected in their dialogue in this scene, as if they already knew how Johnny would meet his end because they had known him all their lives. They don’t know what to do with themselves without his influence and are lost, hence why they’re standing beyond the woods, especially as their last interaction with Johnny was contentious.

The cracked TV screen and burning St George’s flag are a play on an earlier scene in the book, where the TV was smashed, signifying a country obsessed with technology and modern life, shirking the old ways as societal values and norms change. The flag representing thousands of years of English heritage is now going up in flames until they realise Marky is Johnny’s replacement in thought, if not deed.

Rolling drums signify the rhythm of life, Johnny’s heartbeat pounding as he meets his end, the beat only stopped by death. They begin again later in the scene, when Marky’s mother looks into his eyes, seeing something which makes her afraid, much like she experienced with Johnny earlier in the play. I feel this denotes how Johnny may be gone, but he lives on. Ancient drums now beat for his progeny, Marky, who has his blood and is directly linked to thousands of years of British history. Looking into Johnny’s eyes had been akin to looking into the soul of a god, and Dawn realises her son has something ancient and terrifying inside him too, passed down through the generations and Johnny’s words have awoken something which lay dormant inside him.

Ginger mentions Waterloo, like the sign hanging outside Johnny’s caravan, the epic battle connoting Johnny’s last and impossible challenge. He would rather die than give in to authority and relinquish his home. The Professor quotes Edmund Wheatley, a British officer at the battle of waterloo. Within the play, he is knowledgeable about history and ancient customs. It seems apt he might quote something about the epic battle in connection with Johnny’s demise.

Marky arrives, following his encounter with his father and the giant, as a different child, the words of his father have affected him profoundly. He innocently takes Johnny’s advice as gospel, believing he must do as his father says. He becomes an echo of his father and his replacement in the affections of his friends. He meets the giant, a representation of all that is British, like the giants of Albion who were said to have founded Britain, symbolising Britain’s lost legacies. The giant tells Marky he has come to return Johnny to the old country, or the earth, good British soil, like his forebears. Johnny represented the nature god, Pan, his followers worshipping him in a rural or natural setting. In Greek mythology, Pan is the only god who dies and is also often associated with the earth goddess or mother nature.

Hence, we find Johnny in his element, surrounded by all that is natural. I chose to portray the characters discussing how Marky would become like his father, as they already see Johnny’s legacy in him once he begins to speak, destined to continue Johnny’s ancient ways. We are also left wondering whether Marky may someday return to the woods in some way as the giant will eventually come for him too.

In the end, Phaedra’s situation is ignored by most, other than Dawn, who takes the lost and grieving under her wing, and it is implied by her advising she will “sort this mess out” and that she will find a way to keep Phaedra safe and find some way for them to belong. Only Johnny had the heart of a British lion to go against such a thuggish man as Troy Whitworth and was injured badly for it. Johnny saw himself as invincible and symbolised a warrior spirit within the British people, his cloak, his protection from harm in his crossing from life to death, like his birth.

Johnny is resurrected in a ghostly form to live on forever with all the Byrons from the past and his mother, who speaks the words he first heard from her when he was born, reminding him that he is in England still.

The scene ends with Kate Rusby’s folk version of The Kink's song, “We are the village green preservation society”. A song written by a quintessentially British band, who lament the loss of simpler English life, much as is the central theme of the play does.

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