JERUSALEM. To 3 December.

Leeds

JERUSALEM
by Simon Armitage

West Yorkshire Playhouse (Courtyard Theatre) To 3 December 2005
Mon-Sat 7.45pm Mat 1 Dec 2pm & 3 Dec 2.30pm
Audio-described: 1 Dec 7.45pm
Captioned 30 Nov
Runs 2hr 20min One interval

TICKETS: 0113 213 7700
www.wyp.org.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 26 November

The low-down from Jerusalem on high.
At the heart of Simon Armitage’s new play is a small-town tussle between 2 men who loved the same woman. One married her and bullies her from the bed where he’s confined following a years’-old accident. The other left, but now returns, mild-mannered but setting himself up as his rival’s rival in the election for Social Club Entertainment Secretary.

Voting’s on 5th November, aptly enough. For John Edward Castle, who runs his campaign from bed via the household intercom and the presumably limited reach of “Radio Castle, the voice of Jerusalem”, was injured in line of duty as a fireman. Fire-fighting’s in the blood. Which is why ladder-shy son Wesley begins to suspect his own blood when he meets his mother’s former lover out fishing.

Under John Edward’s castle/bedroom a slash-curtain’s penetrated by fire-red strips. Across the traverse stage another slash is a watery-silver. There’s something elemental in the fight, as in the search for love where Wesley’s so self-absorbed he fails to hear the solution to his problem from an old school-friend Samaritan.

With Freud and Jung flung playfully into the pool, and a chorus singing of the tide rising and falling, Jerusalem displays human destiny, aspiration and limitation. Life’s small discomforts and hostilities abound, people are open to corruption and there are the multiple everyday quirks that make up any place. In one light, this could be Llareggyb-on-Ribble.

Armitage’s freewheeling confidence throws lightness of manner over his essential design, both well caught in John Tiffany’s production as its characters cross the canvas of the stage. Doors and trucks bear them speedily, a couple of dodgy tilers always appear on the roof, Wesley’s pushed out over the river on a fire-ladder. And the 2 sides of Jerusalem society are hilariously doubled at a Social Club meeting, four actors whirling between 2 sets of stools. On one there’s the aesthetes, flouncing and flirting with the audience, on the other the red-blooded bigots (Armitage and Tiffany are even-handed in their stereotyping).

The result’s a light-textured rock-cake, a mix of earthly manners with mystery tingling around, played out by a fine cast.

Narrator/Census Taker: Joseph Alessi
Spoon: George Layton
John Edward Castle: Geoff Leesley
Rose Castle: Brigit Forsyth
Wesley Castle: Lee Warburton
Wagstaff: Simeon Truby
Gert Castle/.Sarah: Ruth Alexander-Rubin

Director: John Tiffany
Designer: Laura Hopkins
Lighting: Natasha Chivers
Sound: Mic Pool
Composer/Arranger: John Harris
Movement: Steven Hoggett

2005-11-27 11:43:01