Hugh Jackman in THE RIVER on Broadway

[mamaleh]

Yes, it happened on the opening night of the San Francisco pre-Broadway engagement.

Ellen

[jo]

The Man split his pants after a particularly vigorous encounter with the waders - if you have seen the show, you will know that exact moment I mean


Jo

[chessie]

I haven't seen the show and won't be able to so I'll I'll just have to use my imagination. Sounds like justifiable pants-splitting, though.

Carol

[njr]

Who wants to bid on Hugh?

t.e2ma.net/message/9suxh/hfx44

Nancy

[jo]

A portrait of THE MAN and THE FISH!

www.playbill.com/news/article/stage-portrait-hugh-jackman-in-the-river-335940

[jo]

THE RIVER merchandise --

www.broadwaymerchandiseshop.com/search/goods?for=The+River

[jo]

Craig Zadan ‏@craigzadan · 33m33 minutes ago
Just saw The River on Bway. Spent time with our friend & its brilliant star @realhughjackman for a catch up. So proud of him. I always am.

Zadan (together with Neil Meron) produced the last two NBC live musicals ( Sound of Music, Peter Pan), CHICAGO and HAIRSPRAY, as well as the 2013 OSCARs which featured the cast of Les Miserables singing One Day More!

[carouselkathy]

Hope they discussed the next NBC live project, rumored to be THE MUSIC MAN.

[Jamie]

Dec 6, 2014 21:38:56 GMT -5 carouselkathy said:

Hope they discussed the next NBC live project, rumored to be THE MUSIC MAN.

I hope they don't do the Music Man. It has been so overdone at darn near every high school in the country. While Hugh does know all the Salesmen on the train parts, he doesn't feel right as a Robert Preston and certainly not the wimpy TV version of Matthew Broderick. If they were going to do a live version of something then a live Singing in the Rain converted from the movie or Brigadoon with all the original stage songs restored. Kiss Me Kate or Guys and Dolls would be fun but probably not the more family fare they are seeking.

[jo]

It may be unlikely that the new live NBC-produced musical will involve Hugh --

*If as he says he will start filming Greatest Showman by September ( which can involve lavish numbers), he won't be able to handle another project( with its rehearsal requirements) within that period.

*I think he may not want to do back-to-back musicals and may proceed with other types of filmed entertainment. Maybe the last of the Wolverine trilogy by late winter or early spring of 2016 ( it is due out in March 2017)?

But I would love him to do KISS ME KATE, if he ever chooses a revival. Shakespeare and music

His predecessors from the movies would be Burton (non-musical) and Keel!


Jo

[Jamie]

Dec 7, 2014 18:23:02 GMT -5 jo said:

It may be unlikely that the new live NBC-produced musical will involve Hugh --

*If as he says he will start filming Greatest Showman by September ( which can involve lavish numbers), he won't be able to handle another project( with its rehearsal requirements) within that period.

*I think he may not want to do back-to-back musicals and may proceed with other types of filmed entertainment. Maybe the last of the Wolverine trilogy by late winter or early spring of 2016 ( it is due out in March 2017)?

But I would love him to do KISS ME KATE, if he ever chooses a revival. Shakespeare and music

His predecessors from the movies would be Burton (non-musical) and Keel!


Jo

His voice actually reminds me a great of of Keel's. I can see Hugh easily as Adam Pontipee, Hajj, or Fred Graham. He would have so much fun with Bless Your Beautiful Hide, Gesticulate, or The Life That Late I Led

[jo]

Hugh talks about his fourth co-star in THE RIVER

And doles out advice on how to view the play


news.yahoo.com/hugh-jackman-talks-fish-blood-show-142832828.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Hugh Jackman talks fish, blood and his new show

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Associated Press
By MARK KENNEDY
35 minutes ago




FILE - This 2014 file photo provided by Boneau/Bryan-Brown shows Hugh Jackman as The Man in "The River," a play by Jez Butterworth, directed by Ian Rickson, at Circle in the Square Theatre in New York. Before Jackman appeared in his current Broadway play "The River," he had to learn his lines, dig deep into his character and do something he's never done before: gut a fish. (AP Photo/Boneau/Bryan-Brown, Richard Termine, File)

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NEW YORK (AP) — Before Hugh Jackman could appear in his current Broadway play, "The River," he had to learn his lines, dig deep into his character and do something he's never done before: gut a fish.

His character is a fisherman who in one scene pulls out a real 3-pound sea trout, cuts it open with a fearsome-looking knife, removes the internal organs, chops a fennel bulb, slips lemon slices into the skin and seasons the flesh before popping the dish in a fake oven.

It's a mesmerizing scene and Jackman — a man who plays a sharp-clawed Wolverine in the movies — seems completely at ease as he unhurriedly prepares the fish like a Food Network veteran.

He wasn't always so calm.

"I was originally a little nervous about it," said Jackman over lunch in Manhattan. "I'd never done it before and I knew it had to look like he'd been doing it his whole life."

So Jackman did what any actor worth his salt does: He consulted chefs and practiced. He originally planned to gut a fish every day for months until it became second nature, but he was told the better route was to gut 40 in a single, fishy session.

He got out his knives and made fish fillets and fish sticks and fish soup. "There are fish cakes still frozen in my freezer," he said, laughing. "No one's having fish at my house for a long time."

The scene comes in the middle of Jez Butterworth's enigmatic play about love and repetition. Various women from the fisherman's past enter and leave his remote fishing cabin, warping time and space.

"I think the more poetically you take the piece, and less literally you take the piece, the deeper you go with it," Jackman said. "Ultimately, I think it's a play that just spoke to me and my heart. I read it and I was like, 'Wow. There's something very true and real and honest about connection, about loss, about the search in life.' That's something that I've always had."

Jackman, who plays the pirate Blackbeard in next year's "Pan" and said he's close to starring in an original movie musical about P.T. Barnum, threw himself into the new play. He spoke to memory experts and read works by psychotherapist Carl Jung.

To nail the fish dish preparation scene, Jackman also consulted with a master — chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten, where he has chosen to eat on this afternoon. But Jackman has turned down the lobster tartine and caramelized foie gras for a more modest lunch of raw avocado, toast, peanut butter and marmalade.

"Perfect," he said when his plate arrives. "I really love going to a three-star Michelin restaurant and they say, 'You really must try the marmalade with your peanut butter.'"

"The River," at Circle in the Square Theatre, has been a sellout, in part to Jackman's star power. But even with his comfort in front of an audience, the fish-gutting scene didn't go too smoothly when he first performed it, despite all the practice.

"I'll admit: The first time I did it, I remember thinking, 'My heart rate is about 75 beats a minute,'" said Jackman. Things got worse when he cut off the end of his thumb.

"It was not much but it was enough of a cut and it bled the entire play. I didn't realize it was that bad. I thought it would stop," he said. He could hear the audience murmur about it. "It was not my finest moment."

There were pools of Jackman's blood all over the set and the onstage carpet had to be pulled up and cleaned. "I'm a little slower now but now I've really got it. Now I'm really enjoying it," he said.

He'd better: Jackman is eating fish eight times a week as part of the show. The raw trout he's prepared is quietly swapped out for a roasted one, prepared for each performance from the nearby Emmett O'Lunney's Irish Pub.

Jackman, who also washes his hands and kitchen tools in a working water spigot onstage, had wanted to cook his fish each time, but it turns out it's illegal to have a working oven onstage.

Instead, he now bites into the catered fish at each show — and adores it, insisting it doesn't get old.

"Actors love that: free food," he said. "That never leaves you."

[jo]

Tamara Quinn ‏@tamarajq · 19m19 minutes ago
At Circle In The Square theatre, to see Hugh Jackman in The River. Many excited ladies pretending it's his acting skills they're here for.

LOL! C'est vrai! It's somewhat true

But then, if you discover that he is indeed a fine actor, isn't that twice well worth the effort

I wonder, do most ladies watch the XMEN series for the same reason? Stats showed that about half of ticket-buyers are women, according to Fandango. To whom did Byran Singer pitch the "mirror" scene - the fanboys or was it for the fangirls ( regardless of age) emoticon-cartoon-020

Hugh Jackman indeed attracts the distaff side of the population on planet Earth smiley-bounce016



Jo

[jo]

Having now seen the show quite a number of times ( 6 performances in 9 days), the images and impressions from the play have solidified in my mind in terms of understanding and appreciating the play itself.

Now something I read in the previous VOGUE article by Adam Green ( btw, be sure to pay attention to the huge blow-up of the Leibovitz portraiture on the side of CITS, on West 50th St) -- makes true sense to me now -- after I arrived at a similar conclusion on my own. Something that Hugh said on his role --

“The act of fishing takes him to another world, to another dimension,” Jackman says of his character. “It’s pure and real, which is what he’s looking for in his relationships—looking for ‘the one.’ He’s trying to rekindle something that he lost, or that he’s never had—a feeling of being truly alive.”

Also, a quote from Laura Donnelly resonates with me -- the feeling of sadness in the eleven o'clock scene ( when The Man allows the bowl of water to cascade over him, as if it is an effort to cleanse himself of previous sadnesses) --

The River Broadway ‏@theriverplay · 9h9 hours ago
"It reminded me of certain music—music with darkness and longing to it.” - @donnellylaura1 vogue.cm/1xxlgQo

Jo

[jo]

Meeting people with the same kind of graciousness he accords colleagues and even friends is one of Hugh's winning ways.

Someone presumably met him backstage at The River and they reminisced about the extraordinary experience of the Dad on TBFO.

Liz Dow ‏@lizdowleads · 26m26 minutes ago
Saw Hugh Jackman tonight and told him George Dow story. He remembers sharing stage with Dad. More Broadway magic!

Here's that extraordinary story --

www.huffingtonpost.com/liz-dow/gratitude-practice-_b_5406234.html

[mamaleh]

I remember that lovely story. One thing confuses me, though: Liz Dow says she and her dad saw the show in 2003. But the photo of her father with Hugh shows the latter in gold lame pants. He didn't switch from black pants to gold until after the Tonys in '04. Oh, well, it's still a great anecdote that says a lot about Hugh's "heart of gold"--and a wonderful memory for Ms. Dow.

Ellen

[jo]

I missed this tweet from Hugh on Dec 3 --

Hugh Jackman @realhughjackman
· Dec 3
With the phenomenally talented Tony Award winner @benvereen backstage @theriverplay

If Hugh ever thinks of doing a movie musical remake of Lloyd-Webber's JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR -- Ben can reprise the Judas role.

I think this could be a fantastic role for Hugh -- there is drama and there is rock-opera music and there is that throat-aching GETHSEMANE iconic solo!


Jo

[jo]

Damon Gonzalez✌ ‏@theycallmedaymz · 14m14 minutes ago
I spy @lievschreiber & #NaomiWatts enjoying a matinee of @theriverplay staring @realhughjackman cc: @pagesix

Shannon Leigh ‏@lvshannyleigh · 2h2 hours ago
In which I sat by Liev Schriever at @theriverplay and saw some woman bid 2k for @realhughjackman's underwear for @bcefa #ILoveBroadway

Underwear ?? ... Was that a wishful-thinking bid - LOL!


It seems someone might have caught that playful momement --

http://instagram.com/p/wmlaf1ASeq

Jo

[jo]

Adri ‏@adrianamejia20 · 34m34 minutes ago
@realhughjackman waiting for you #theriver

One of the most pleasurable moments in the theatre is the feeling of anticipation as the theatre begins to fill in...followed by the excited chatter of the assembled crowd waiting for the show to start...and then the hush that descends in the theatre as the lights dim and music/sounds start ( in some cases, as the warning bell rings and the curtain unfolds).

Love those moments smiley-happy082


Jo

[jo]

While posting on this board, I am also listening to MICHAEL BALL's CHRISTMAS album. And the song that just came up is one by Joni Mitchell called THE RIVER!

I looked for the version by Michael and found it at the tail-end of this UK Christmas show 10 years ago --

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e94rXo1UAg

At 22'07"



This is for you, Hugh Jackman!

And for those who were enchanted by the play of Jez Butterworth and for those who loved the show or for those who may want to revisit it at Circle in the Square!


Jo

[jo]

Laura Donnelly is interviewed again --

www.broadway.com/buzz/178917/the-river-star-laura-donnelly-on-her-man-hugh-jackman-celebrating-the-holidays-in-america/

The River Star Laura Donnelly on Her 'Man' Hugh Jackman & Celebrating the Holidays in America

Interviews By Kathy Henderson December 18, 2014 - 1:40PM




The River Star Laura Donnelly on Her 'Man' Hugh Jackman & Celebrating the Holidays in America
Laura Donnelly photographed by Caitlin McNaney for Broadway.com at Delta Grill



About the Show

Poster •Overview
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'The play holds a mirror up to the audience, and they take from it what’s relevant to their lives.'




Age: 32

Hometown: Belfast, Northern Ireland

Current Role: A Broadway debut as “The Other Woman,” who mysteriously enters midway through The River dressed for a night of fly-fishing with Hugh Jackman.

Stage & Screen Cred: In the decade since she graduated from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, Donnelly has worked steadily on stage, including the 2012 London premiere of The River opposite Dominic West. On TV, she’s been featured in ABC’s Missing, BBC’s The Fall and the current Starz hit Outlander.

“My first experience on stage was in a dance company that mixed Irish dance and ballet in productions of old Irish myths and legends. We went around Northern Ireland, and I played the children’s parts. That’s when the bug bit and I knew I wanted to do this professionally.”

“When I first read The River, I had theories on what it was about, but once we got into rehearsal, I realized it’s much simpler: It’s about how human beings try to connect. The play holds a mirror up to the audience, and they take from it what’s relevant to their lives.”

“It’s been exciting to work with both [Dominic West and Hugh Jackman on The River]. Dominic has a slightly darker sense about him; people feel he may be a bit unsavory. Hugh is the nicest man on the planet, which makes you root for him as The Man. Both give so much of themselves on stage.”

“I loved having my first American Thanksgiving with cousins in the Bronx, and my mom will be over for Christmas. She’s incredibly proud—and when she gets here, she may be slightly overwhelmed! It’s going to be a thrilling holiday.”

“It’s not easy being Hugh Jackman, but he wears the attention better than anyone I’ve ever met. He treats every person he meets the same and finds joy in everything he does. The lesson I’ve learned is that if you work incredibly hard and you’re nice to everybody, you’ll be fine.”

“Fly-fishing is really addictive. We went upstate for the day, and I caught a fish and Hugh caught a fish. Do point out that I caught the first fish! Cush [Jumbo] had some on the line, but they got free, which was a shame. But we had a brilliant time.”

[jo]

Jonathan Anderson ‏@jonnyanderson11 · 14m14 minutes ago
I didn't take this pic, but I was literally sat in this exact spot watching @realhughjackman in #TheRiver on Sat nite





Jonathan Anderson ‏@jonnyanderson11 · 13m13 minutes ago
Now I'm not 100% sure, but I think that means that me and Wolverine are now best friends....the man splashed me as he was cleaning his fish!

[jo]

www.nytimes.com/2014/12/21/theater/stage-memories-from-2014.html?_r=0

Theater

A Bare Beginning, a Ghostly Ending

Stage Memories From 2014


By THE NEW YORK TIMESDEC. 18, 2014



Here, then gone: That’s the bittersweet joy of live theater. Sure there are revivals, but will “Revolution in the Elbow of Ragnar Agnarsson Furniture Maker,” the Icelandic rock musical that played a few hardy months Off Broadway, come back? Unlikely.

Here (and mostly gone) are other stage moments that have stayed with writers and editors for The New York Times:...






BE CAREFUL OUT THERE Hugh Jackman learned how to gut and fillet a trout for a scene in his new play “The River,” but he cut himself a couple of times while at it, once even continuing to perform while bleeding. Who knew the drama’s tension would include his bodily safety? PATRICK HEALY

[jo]

Insightful article from UK critic and stage scene writer Mark Shenton --

broadwaydirect.com/feature/hugh-jackman-the-river?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=issue%20121

Hugh Jackman on the Joy of Connecting With an Audience



By MARK SHENTON

DEC 22, 2014


Broadway Direct’s Mark Shenton speaks to director Ian Rickson and actor Hugh Jackman about their collaboration on The River, Broadway’s most quietly intense and thrilling new play.



There isn’t a Broadway star quite like Hugh Jackman. He may be best known as one of cinema’s foremost all-action, muscular heroes as Wolverine, but on stage (where his acting career began in his native Australia), he makes very interesting, often surprising choices.

This boy from Oz made his Broadway debut in 2003 in the title role of The Boy From Oz, a musical biography of the late Australian singer/songwriter Peter Allen. He has also brought his cabaret concert Hugh Jackman: Back on Broadway for a sell-out run in 2011. And he has twice starred in the Broadway premieres of two plays, A Steady Rain in 2009 (opposite Daniel Craig) and now The River by Jez Butterworth, whose last play on Broadway was the Tony-nominated Jerusalem in 2011.

“I’m always looking for new work both as an actor and a theatergoer,” Jackman tells Broadway Direct. “And I’m a massive fan of Jez’s — I’d seen Jerusalem and thought he was an amazing writer, and when I read The River, I found it profoundly affecting. It resonates on many, many levels, and I was immediately drawn to it. It’s a beautiful piece and it’s always exciting to be part of something new.


There’s precious little new work on Broadway, and I am loving doing it.”

If there isn’t an actor quite like Jackman, there isn’t a play quite like The River, either — a brooding, quietly intense and thrilling piece that revolves around The Man (played by Jackman) and the women he brings to his rural fishing cabin. It’s a play of mystery and multiple layers, but director Ian Rickson insists it isn’t difficult: “This play is so accessible. It’s about loss, love, presence, and memory, and as I sit in the Circle in Square, I find that audiences are absolutely engrossed by it.”

Jackman confirms it. “There’s a level of quiet in the audience I’ve never experienced before. We go to the theatre to crave that intimate experience in the moment with a story and with a crowd of strangers, and they become very connected to it. There’s a very special feeling in that theatre — it’s very intimate, so it doesn’t matter where you’re sitting.” The audience is wrapped around the onstage cabin on three sides, and no one is more than eight rows away from the stage. “It’s exciting to be part of something really visceral,” Jackman continues.

“The play is part mystery, part love story, and it leaves you thinking about it for days afterwards. I’ve been doing it for weeks now, and I’m still thinking about it — it’s a very deep play, and resonates at whatever level you want to meet it on,” he adds. “It’s very poetic and heightened, but also a very real play — it feels real and naturalistic and grounded, but also mythic.”

A play that is all about presence requires the audience to be present too. And few actors command that sense of attention as Jackman does so seemingly effortlessly. Director Rickson says, “His character is called The Man, so you have to have someone with an iconic, mythic, masculine weight. He has that — he’s pure man — but he also has a poetic sensibility.”

Rickson, who previously directed the play in a short run at London’s tiny Royal Court Theatre Upstairs (a theatre where he was once its artistic director), has worked frequently there with playwright Butterworth, whose first play, Mojo, he directed there, as well as Jerusalem. “We decided that after the Theatre Upstairs it would be exciting for the next iteration of it to be in America, where it is a fresh and a new play. But it needs to have someone with real weight, and we knew that Hugh wanted to do a play.” He feels blessed that Jackman signed up for the job. “I’m in love with him — he’s so radiant and open and thoughtful, but also so hardworking. In the play he has to gut and prepare a fish, and he’d come in every day at 8:30 a.m. to practice it! He’d also take home bulbs of fennel and leeks to practice the cutting of them. I find that really exciting actors, apart from being curious and open, are also the ones who work really hard.”

For Jackman, the preparation he took was a necessity. “My goal is always to make it look natural and easy. The hard thing about acting is that you’re often taking on things you’ve never done before but you have to make it look like you’ve done it all your life — and you need to practice it. You can’t take shortcuts. And that moment of silently preparing a fish is a great moment of joy for him. Now it is for me: It is something I look forward to every night.”

Is he a keen cook himself? “I do OK, but I grew up with both my parents being great cooks, so I was around it a lot. I’d never gutted a fish before, though!” Nor had he fished as a child, so he went fly-fishing with his son in Montana: “It was a research trip, but I didn’t tell him that!”

But now the important thing is to put all that preparation behind him. “Ian is an amazing director who has really prepared us in a beautiful way to make this play feel completely fresh and new every night. Hopefully all of our preparation is hidden, and it is as if it is happening for the first time.”

The rapt attention that the play receives is testament to the fact that audiences believe it is.

The rapt attention that the play commands was something I noticed right from my first viewing. You can hardly hear the proverbial pin drop. Yet, in moments of some hilarity, the audience reaction also reverberates around the intimate theatre. Even the fish preparation extended scene seems to command strict attention.

Re the fish scene - Hugh was so relaxed with it -- although, like a schoolboy who has been asked to perform in a school play, he does everything carefully and with extra attention

It seems that Hugh's decision to do this play stems from a certain attachment to this kind of writing. Is it writing that resonates with him on a personal level maybe because he has a background in writing/journalism? And could it also be that he leans towards cultural preferences for this kind of elliptical work because of his British roots?




Jo

[jo]

There isn’t a Broadway star quite like Hugh Jackman. He may be best known as one of cinema’s foremost all-action, muscular heroes as Wolverine, but on stage (where his acting career began in his native Australia), he makes very interesting, often surprising choices.

Sometimes I wonder if serious journalists who write about Hugh's career choices are equally familiar with both his film and his stage work? Shenton comments on Hugh's surprising choices onstage - but is he also familiar with his surprising choices in his film work ( The Fountain, The Prestige, Prisoners, and even Les Miserables).

I think we are a lucky group - as fans who are equally familiar ( and maybe even devoted) to the kind of work that he does, on both theatre and film. We must be one of the first to appreciate the talent and versatility that Hugh Jackman is now being recognized for !


Jo