Mark Rylance is realllllllllyyyyyy awesome.

So I saw the play Jerusalem on Broadway yesterday.  I first heard about this play when I was living in London last year but it was completely sold out and I kept on kicking myself for not getting tickets.  So, when I heard it was moving ro Broadway I was ecstatic.  It also took me many months to finally get my act together to see this great show.

Firstly, I. LOVE. MARK. RYLANCE.  I saw him in Boeing Boeing a few years back.  That show, a farce, was hilarious because of the theatrical form, but mostly because of Mark Rylance's impeccable comic timing and physicality.  I remember that my voice teacher from Stella Adler told us that this was the most relaxed performance she had ever seen.

In Jerusalem, Mark Rylance plays a drug dealing social outcast whom thinks of himself as a king in his own right.  This show had its comic moments but was a far cry from the light heartedness and ease of Boeing Boeing.  Jerusalem is a very complicated play.  There were two articles in the Playbill about this show, clearly showing how much this play has stirred up New York audiences.  But one of the articles really highlighted how the convoluted, allegorical form of the play wasn't necessarily intended to evoke homage to the great writers and characters in the English literary canon.  The playwright was particularly surprised that the New York critics viewed his play as a social commentary utilizing the famous literary figures throughout time including Falstaff, Fagan, Byron, Shakespeare, and the like.  While I don't intend to dissect the full meaning of what I believed the play to be about, this was clearly a play about the current English state of being and the problems within the English society (and I specifically say ENGLAND because of the English flag present, NOT the Union Jack).

There was a time when I would spend HOURS pouring over what a complicated play like Jerusalem meant.  I would try to dissect every meaning underneath a word that resonated or a specific name of a character.  I don't know if it's just pure mental exhaustion or just acceptance of a play for what it is - but I don't intend to dissect this play into some sort of allegorical meaning.  In some ways, that analysis strips the beauty of the play's mystery.

But what I want to talk about is MARK RYLANCE.  This man is the actor's actor.  He uses language in a way that so few actors do nowadays.  The ending of Jerusalem was breathtaking because I could see how connected he was with his language.  His specificity is not really seen a lot today.  And that's what makes him so watchable even when a play or the dialogue may be unclear.  In addition to language, my GOD does this man know how to use his body.  He is so connected with his body.  And I've realized that connection with the body is not just how an actor physicalizes a character (which Rylance did impeccably-he makes tiny adjustments that speak millions of words), but how an actor holds himself in stillness and in relation to other actors.  In Jerusalem, I found Rylance's control over his body allowed his body to speak a message about the character in a specific moment.  Mark Rylance makes the audience's work easy.  He knows his characters so well that we can just watch this man LIVE in the men he plays.

Mark Rylance truly is a tour-de-force.  I could watch him all day.  And even though his character in Jerusalem was tragic, I couldn't help but love that at the curtain call he started doing a short gleeful jig.  This man LOVES what he does and does it so well.  That is a true gift.