The Night Heron - Acting Edition

by Jez Butterworth

The sighting of a rare bird attracts attention to a remote part of the Fens. The visiting birdwatchers cannot know what dangers lie in the freezing darkness of the marshes. In an isolated cabin, Wattmore, bruised and bleeding, is recording the Old Testament onto cassette. Griffin arrives with two bags of chips. Salvation is at handâ a cash prize for winning the university poetry competition and the arrival of a possible lodger.

Genres: Plays, Drama

72 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2003

Reviews

[Henry! · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even better

[Jonathan Daley · Rating 3 out of 5]

You can tell that this is a Jez Butterworth play. It deals with many of the themes that are recurrent in his work: nature, the outsider, implicit and explicit violence and truckloads of symbolism. The religious symbolism in this piece threaten to cause it to buckle under the strain, and I think this really hampers it’s trajectory. It’s clearly an important play for his development and we have this piece partly to thank for his latter masterpieces, I’m sure.

[Marc Sebastian Head · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did GCSE and A-Level Drama back in the day, and for one of them (I think GCSE) we were taken to see The Night Heron, the second play by then-new playwright Jez Butterworth. (This was no small undertaking as I was educated in Belgium, so these drama trips to the West End of London were always...eventful!) I was familiar with some of the cast - Ray Stevenson and Karl Johnson, and I remember writing about Jessica Stevenson's performance as Bolla in one of my exams, and later seeing her in the TV show Spaced. I don't remember being particularly impressed with the play (especially having seen the much better Lieutenant of Inishmore around the same time), and couldn't remember much of the plot. My copy of the script is heavily marked up with highlighter and margin notes from my younger self, but I can't make much of them now!

So I decided to give it another go. Alas, there's still not much here for me. There are various attempts at religious symbolism made - the iconostasis, the Bible recordings, the lost garden, the boy from Corpus Christi, the cult leader, the elusive Night Heron itself - but they all overlap and tend to confuse one another rather than illuminate meaning. Butterworth's dialogue is often praised but it does nothing for me here, and I wonder how much of that praise is due to the performers rather than the script. And it's a weird one tonally - I can't quite tell if some scenes/characters are meant to be humorous or not, and while that may be intentional, it just sort of adds to the feeling of dissatisfaction.

It may be that it works better on stage, but I daresay not, as it barely gets a mention even in articles about Butterworth's work in general. Not one to go out of your way for.

[Doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not always sure I understand, even on a very basic level, what Butterworth is doing (or intending) in his plays, but they always both intrigue and make me laugh ... this early effort, his second produced play after his breakthrough 'Mojo', does not contain the sustained power of his latest work, but it's still quite a hoot (no bird pun intended!).

[Dave Frey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this because a friend who staged the play last November sent me a copy.

I don't read many scripts, but this one reminded me how much I can like it: we need to stage it ourselves in some way in our imagination, and I enjoyed that this time. And it's a pretty rich text, so it's nice to linger and reread and consider, in a way that's difficult when attending a production.

And, I sure wish I could see this on the stage too. The energy and absurdity of the fourth act made me miss seeing theater performed.

The gardening theme and recorded narrative really worked for me: borders and perennials and tender perennials; mulches and frosts; garden and greenhouse and gardener. Gardeners and strimmers.

Nice touch that Butterworth shared his name with his central character. I really want to read more from this guy.

One favorite line was actually a closing stage direction: "A shot rings out. The birds cry out. The tape continues." Solidarity and the endless unfolding of story.

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Royal Court, London 2002

Wattmore - Karl Johnson
Griffin - Ray Winstone
Bolla - Jessica Stevenson
Neddy - Roger Morlidge
Royce - Paul Ritter
Jonathon - Finlay Robertson
Dougal- Geoffrey Church