Performance

This chapter looks to recent and established positions in the fields from which stylistics and performance might respectively be plucked and offers, with further reference to cognate critical theories, an analysis of Richard Bean’s play England People Very Nice (2009) and Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem (2009). Beginning with a discussion of the performance and representation of England in the staged and fictional worlds of the plays, analysis later focuses on Mark Rylance’s performance as Johnny Rooster Byron in the closing minutes of the 2011–12 production of Jerusalem at The Apollo Theatre, London (dir. Rickson 2011).