Hugh Jackman in THE RIVER on Broadway

[jo]

Excellent article on one of the play's leading ladies, Cush Jumbo --

broadwaydirect.com/feature/the-river-cush-jumbo?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=issue%20100

A Jumbo-Sized Talent

By MARK SHENTON

JUL 29, 2014

Mark Shenton meets the fast-rising actress Cush Jumbo as she prepares to make her Broadway debut in The River, opposite Hugh Jackman.



Cush Jumbo may be a new name on Broadway this season, but British theatergoers who have been watching the rapid progress of the 28-year-old actress already know that she’s something special — and that major stardom could be just around the corner for her.


She’s about to star in the Broadway bow of Jez Butterworth’s London hit The River at the Circle in the Square Theatre, opposite Hugh Jackman. It originally premiered in a sold-out run at the Royal Court Theatre in 2012.


She tells Broadway Direct that she didn’t see the production then, but she connected with it from the moment she read it. “I’m a big fan of magical realism in fiction. I’m half Nigerian, so I was brought up with it. A lot of the novelists I love, like Gabriel García Márquez, create a naturalistic real world where magic can happen in a moment or on a daily basis, and the reader has to go along with it. Reading Jez’s plays, like Jerusalem, you get the sense of the possibility of magic as it is connected to the cycle of life. With The River, you realize very quickly it isn’t a play about fishing, but it is put in a framework of a play about fishing. It’s a kind of a dream, and I loved that idea.”


She goes on to say, “As an actor, it throws up a whole lot of questions and investigations that excite you, about how you can bring an audience into the words and the story and the magic of it.” When she was first approached about it, she was unaware that Hugh Jackman was also attached to it. It would be enough for her to be working with Jez Butterworth (“He’s an awesome writer”) and director Ian Rickson “He’s a really fantastic, exciting director who I wanted to work with”). So, she says, “going for the audition was a no-brainer.”


After a couple of auditions, she was brought in for a reading with Jackman. “We met in a conference room of a hotel in London where he was filming, and I was quite nervous! I’d never met him before, and I was not sure what someone who is quite high-profile was going to be in real life! But he was just so welcoming and generous, and within five or six minutes I forgot it was Hugh Jackman. He was also much taller than I expected! I was also very impressed that he was off-book [not using a script] for the scene and that he had so much to say about it and obviously loved the play. I had an incredibly exciting time working with him. He does something that is obvious and you hope is going to happen every time you work with someone, but often doesn’t: He listens. Sometimes actors can stare at you with glazed eyes, waiting for their next line, but you have to be a good listener in the theater. And he is, and works very hard at being one.”


So is Cush. And she’s also a good talker, not taking for granted anything that has happened to her. “I didn’t come out of drama school and roll from job to job; my first year was really tough. I had to work as a teaching assistant for an agency, I ran a pancake stall in Dulwich Market, I taught drama classes and ran my own workshops. I applied for every ad on Gumtree there possibly was.” The same was true while she was training. “I’ve done every job possible. I’ve cleaned and looked after kids and stood on roller skates wearing hot pants. I worked in bars and at a dry cleaners, cleaning the collars with a sucky thing! I worked at a market-research company, calling people up and asking them if they wanted to come in and taste Kit Kat Bars.”


But she says now, “I’m very grateful for the way things have panned out. If I hadn’t had a struggle at the start, I wouldn’t know what a struggle is in terms of this job, and I wouldn’t appreciate every single day. Whether you love or hate a job, you mustn’t waste the chance to do something with it.”


And she didn’t. Critics soon started sitting up and taking notice of Jumbo’s performances, like her Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion at Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre — the theatre where, in 2012, she won the Ian Charleson Award for Best Classical Performance by actors under 30 for playing Rosalind in As You Like It. Reviewing that production, British critic Clare Brennan wrote that Jumbo “looks set to become one of the best actresses of her generation.”


Last year, she returned to the Manchester Royal Exchange to play Nora in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House; earlier in the year she played Mark Antony in an all-female production of Julius Caesar at the Donmar Warehouse (for which she was nominated for an Olivier Award), and that subsequently transferred to New York’s St Ann’s Warehouse. She also starred in her self-penned one-woman show, Josephine and I, about a personal heroine of hers, Josephine Baker, that premiered at London’s Bush Theatre. That show is now eyeing a New York outing after Jumbo completes her run in The River.


As that eclectic range of roles suggests, Jumbo doesn’t impose any limits on the work she’ll put herself up for, whether on nationality or even gender, and she tells Broadway Direct, “I’m an adventurer. There are so many things I’d like to. I’d love to do an Angelina Jolie and dress in Lycra and kick the crap out of somebody in a movie. I’d like to train with the Army, shoot people, and roll off cars — who wouldn’t like to do that?”

If it’s surprising to hear an actress who’s played Nora and Mark Antony confess to such aspirations, it’s obvious she is imposing no limits on where she will go or what she will do. “I’ve learned that you never know what is around the corner, so it’s best to enjoy the ride.”


And she’s definitely enjoying the ride right now. Earlier this year, she completed her first feature film role, in Remainder, a psychological thriller that was shot in London and Berlin — “It’s a British film, but I’m playing an American!” — and she’s recently gone back to film the fifth season of the British TV show Vera, in which she previously appeared on an earlier season. “I left it to do Julius Caesar, but I really enjoyed working with Brenda Blethyn. It’s a really high-quality show made with a lot of integrity. It’s always good to do something a bit different, to shake up your muscles a bit!”


She’s looking forward to returning to New York next. Appearing in Julius Caesar last year, she said, “I absolutely loved it. We were staying in Brooklyn, and living there with the girls meant I got a real sense of New York as a city of real people, rather than tourists. The show also seemed to really speak to people, to penetrate into their hearts — there were always people of different ages wanting to talk to us after the show about what they had seen, and it reminded me of the high level of risk we take with our theater [in Britain]. When we take it elsewhere, it really affects people’s hearts and minds.”


She anticipates that the same will be true of The River. And no doubt people will soon start recognizing her in New York — as they do in London, though not necessarily as herself. At the Olivier Awards, she hilariously reveals, someone came up to her afterward and said, “I loved the song you sang from The Bodyguard.” They thought she was Heather Headley. She says, “At a fashion party, someone came up to me and said, ‘I absolutely loved you in Skyfall!’ As I was wondering how to begin a sentence with ‘I’m not Naomi Harris,’ he said, ‘It’s OK — there are loads of celebrities here!’ as if I was hiding it to be really cool. When I said I really wasn’t her, he gradually started to realize his mistake — then he said, ‘You’re the nurse from Getting On!’ I went, ‘Yes, I am! A much smaller series, but that’s exactly right!’”


Soon, I’m sure, she’ll be recognized as the star she is in her own right.

[jo]

An article on the playwright Jez Butterworth and his artistic partnership with director Ian Rickson ( the same creative team for the Broadway staging of THE RIVER) --

broadwaydirect.com/feature/the-river-hugh-jackman

The River

Tony Award winner Hugh Jackmon returns to Broadway in a spellbinding new play written by Jez Butterworth and directed by Ian Rickson.



A Theatrical Partnership 10 Years Strong

By MARK SHENTON

JUL 29, 2014


In the theater, as so often in life, it is the deep and enduring partnerships that add both resonance and texture to the productions — and bring out the best in the partners.



Such is the case with playwright Jez Butterworth and director Ian Rickson, who have worked together ever since Butterworth, then 24, and Rickson, then 31, collaborated on the playwright’s London debut in 1994.


That play was Mojo, which premiered at London’s Royal Court Theatre; last year, Butterworth and Rickson teamed up to revive it in the West End, and Rickson told one interviewer, “It feels a bit like I’m working with Jez on remastering his first album. How lucky am I?”


It was a play that Rickson had championed when he was part of the directorial team at the Royal Court, then run by Stephen Daldry (before Rickson himself would take over). The theatre was looking for a summer hit when the script arrived, and Rickson told another interviewer, “I brought Jez in, we had a read-through with six actors, and we knew straight away we were on to a winner. The dogma of the time dictated that new playwrights went in the theatre upstairs, but Mojo felt constrained there. So Stephen did the bold thing: debut, main stage, bang!”


It was on that same main stage that Rickson would go on to direct the premieres of Butterworth’s The Winterling, The Night Heron, and Jerusalem, while Parlour Song was premiered at London’ Almeida Theatre. But after the triumphant West End and subsequent Broadway success of Jerusalem, the playwright knew he had to write on a smaller scale, which is how The River came to be premiered at the Royal Court’s tiny, 90-seat Theatre Upstairs instead. He told The Times at the time: “I got offered almost every West End theatre. I could have put it on anywhere, but I couldn’t write it. I got halfway through and I couldn’t get any further. But when I went and saw the Royal Court’s Theatre Upstairs I knew that’s where it wanted to be. It exists because it wanted to go on there.”


And that is where it received glowing notices from the London critics. Charles Spencer of The Daily Telegraph wrote, “The River is like a subtly crafted piece of chamber music. It is teasing, haunting, and hushed, with just three speaking roles for unnamed characters.” He also admitted, “It is also damnably difficult to write about as there is a mystery at its heart that I must not reveal.”


Set in a wooden cabin beside a river in the English countryside, it revolves around a man with a passion for fishing — and two women who visit him, separately, there. Cush Jumbo, who is playing one of those women, told Broadway Direct, “Reading Jez’s plays, like Jerusalem, you get the sense of the possibility of magic as it is connected to the cycle of life. With The River, you realize very quickly it isn’t a play about fishing, but it is put in a framework of a play about fishing. It’s a kind of a dream, and I loved that idea.”


For Butterworth, there’s another dream, like that of all playwrights: to see his plays live. When Mojo was revived last year, he told The Daily Telegraph, “It is a piece of work of which I am really proud. If it were some other art form — painting or music or film — we wouldn’t have to do this. But because theater’s first and best trick is that it’s live, if plays are going to live then they need to be done again. So we might as well have a go at it every couple of decades.” And now Rickson and Butterworth are about to have another go at The River.


This brilliant theatrical partnership has been equaled in the theater only by the relationships that Peter Hall once had with the late Harold Pinter; Michael Blakemore has with Michael Frayn; and Peter Wood and Trevor Nunn have had with Tom Stoppard. According to Sonia Friedman, the West End and Broadway producer who produced the transfers of Jerusalem and is now bringing The River to Broadway, “Every writer wants to find a kindred spirit, a director who understands what they are trying to say. Jez and Ian are lucky. They are on the same wavelength. There is a mutual trust and appreciation that brings out the best in both. It’s rare, but great when it happens.”


Rickson himself tells Broadway Direct, “It’s hard to put into words how exactly Jez and I work together. He definitely writes them and I direct them. I know that much. And there’s a deep loyalty and a love of collaboration, which helps us both. Jez will show me something quite early, and I will seek to be as supportive and enabling as possible to help it come through. We talk, imagine, and visualize the rough magic of a live stage. We share references, which might be poetry, folk myths, or come from psychoanalysis, each knowing that Jez will be like a medium channeling something from the deep. In the writing process and in the rehearsal room I can never really remember whose idea was what, although Jez is definitely the primary artist, and I’m the interpretative one. I’m blessed.”


So are theatergoers — on both sides of the Atlantic.

[jo]

There has been an announcement that the current tenant of CIRCLE IN THE SQUARE, the Audra MacDonald play ( Lady Day) is being extended to October 5.

Some interesting discussions on BWW --

THE RIVER begins previews Oct. 31. I'm guessing this is the furthest they could extend it. This gives THE RIVER less then 4 weeks before it's first preview. Anyone else think they're cutting it a little close.

Nah. A load-out, load-in, and tech can easily be accomplished in that time.

They must be planning to use the thrust setup for the Circle in the Square instead of the in the round if they are only giving themselves 4 weeks.

Someone I know associated with The River said it will be a thrust stage.

Hopefully, there will be no extension of the filming schedule for PAN which involves Hugh...he also needs the time to grow his hair out - LOL!


Jo

[jo]

This the seating chart for THE RIVER published on the Telecharge page for the show --



Someone on BWW clarified that this is what is called a " THRUST STAGE"...where the play is performed right into the audience.

This is going to be fascinating - how actors perform with the audience around them. It is much easier to imagine how it works if this were a musical. But a play seems like hard work, if they have to be seen facing the audience on three sides.

Jo

[carouselkathy]

Is this the set up they'll use? this is what it looked like for Lady D. I'm guessing that my seats will be about in the same spot so that I don't have to climb or descend stairs. It's a nice theater.

[jo]

For LADY DAY -- it was a slightly different setup.




The main difference is that the center was used for floor seats, and the performance seemed to have used a proscenium stage, with a bit of thrust into the audience.

[carouselkathy]

You're right, Jo. The tables were in the center. I was thinking mostly of the surrounding seats being the same.

[jo]

It seems that Circle in the Square Theatre can be configured in quite a few ways to suit the requirements of the show featured there. But I have yet to read anyone complaining on Broadway message boards about viewing the shows housed in that theatre from any angle. Your words are reassuring, Kathy, that it is a beautiful small theatre.

In contrast, this theatre ( which seats anywhere from around 700 to 800?) is a much larger venue than the Royal Court Theatre's ( whose primary artistic mission is to support new work) tiny venue which premiered THE RIVER. Based on the interview with Jez Butterworth, he said he could not be inspired by the huge venues being offered to him...and found his inspiration when he found the theatre that seated less than 100!

But after the triumphant West End and subsequent Broadway success of Jerusalem, the playwright knew he had to write on a smaller scale, which is how The River came to be premiered at the Royal Court’s tiny, 90-seat Theatre Upstairs instead. He told The Times at the time: “I got offered almost every West End theatre. I could have put it on anywhere, but I couldn’t write it. I got halfway through and I couldn’t get any further. But when I went and saw the Royal Court’s Theatre Upstairs I knew that’s where it wanted to be. It exists because it wanted to go on there.”

Jo

[jo]

Audra McDonald ‏@audraequalitymc · 11h
Oct 5th is definitely the final extension on @ladydayonbway folks! We have to make way for @realhughjackman!

It is going to be such a contrast! Lady Day and The River!!

It's been 12 years since Hugh and Audra sang the CAROUSEL musical score together at Carnegie Hall!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEXpilQYN5E

IF I LOVED YOU is one of my favorite Carousel music!


Jo

[jo]

Some useful blogs and reviews that will help appreciate the enigma of the play --

SPOILER ALERT
SPOILER ALERT
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SPOILER ALERT

Mildly Bitter's Musings


A Sarcastic Theater Blog. Welcome to my strange island of misfit toy opinions.
Sunday, December 16, 2012


The River: Borne Back Ceaselessly Into The Past



"I will be out there looking for you."-- The Man, The River



Maybe it's the fact that I had just traveled to London and travel always stirs up so many of my emotions. Or maybe I've had longing and desire on the brain lately. But that ephemeral sense of wanting something that is beyond your reach really resonates with me.

Jez Butterworth's new play The River fit nicely into my existential musings and the sensuous, intimacy of the small-scale work was a dramatic departure from the epic nature of his last play Jerusalem. Set in a fishing cabin in the woods an avid fisherman wants to share his passion with a new girlfriend. And maybe today is the day he has said "I love you." And maybe not everyone in the room is being honest with each other. The play starts with an open door, daylight pouring through it, and a woman singing off stage.

Directed by Ian Rickson with design by Ultz (the same creative team as Jerusalem), the play was well-suited to the Jerwood Theatre Upstairs space at the Royal Court which provided for a small stage and an audience in close proximity to the action. From the natural soundscape, to the dim lighting, to the creaking of the floorboards, the audience cannot help but be taken in by the sensations the space creates. The writing and performances created a sense of anticipation and ultimately unease as the entire play seems to be structured around what you will and will not be shown. What takes place off-stage being equally important, at least to the characters, to the on-stage action. It's like trying to watch the conversation between a couple on a subway platform across from you--maybe passing trains keep interrupting and you can hear pieces of the conversation--you know something pivotal is happening but you cannot know for sure exactly what.


It's impossible to talk about the play without some bit of spoiling the discoveries it has to offer and they are discoveries I enjoyed not knowing until after so...STOP IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ SPOILERS. STOP READING. Did you stop. Ok.

Occasionally the fisherman is speaking to his girlfriend who is off-stage. When she returns, it is an entirely different actress and becomes clear an entirely different girlfriend. Passages we have heard between one iteration of the man and the woman are repeated by the other iteration of the man and the other woman. Suddenly the repetition creates tension. Which relationship is in the present? Which relationship is in the past? There are few temporal landmarks.

Unexpectedly my trip to London was full of plays and musicals that use repetition to enhance and change your emotional reaction to something you have heard before. Constellations by Nick Payne is an entire play of repeated text (with slightly nuanced variations). The repetitive lines there are about expressing the possibility of parallel universes and how one couple might fare through the fractured lens of immeasurable other realities. Merrily We Roll Along, which is structured in reverse chronological order, uses repetitive musical threads to great effect. For instance, Not a Day Goes By is sung both at the character's divorce as well as her wedding. Hearing it first for the divorce and then later for the wedding colors the meaning of the reprise because you already know that this hopeful, happy moment will come to a broken end. What could have been a sweet moment on its own and just a beautiful song becomes trenchant and bittersweet because of the repetition and the juxtaposition.

Here, in The River, all this replication is blended with a great deal of silence. With sparse language, and a great deal unspoken, you palpably feel the space between the characters. They are exploring where exactly they are in this relationship and where things are going with it. But much of what they are feeling and thinking is unexpressed and we feel the emotional distance. I loved the space that the play took. Sometimes silence can be more effective at expressing a relationship than a constant stream of dialogue. Using the small stage and the rustic enclosure of the cabin, the staging gave the right amount of space to the words, emotions and performances.

Dominic West, who I thought was revelatory as Iago last year, was magnetic again in the role of The Man. He's believably rugged as he guts a fish and cooks it, yet intensely romantic as he expresses his love to The Woman (Miranda Raison) and The Other Woman (Laura Donnelly).

What was spoken, was often repeated but did not become tiresome. Craving information or clues to this mysterious story, I found myself very attuned to what was being said, what was being withheld and how the results of the repeated conversations sometimes varied. In contrast to Constellations, where I struggled with the writer's intent, here I felt like Butterworth had a keen sense of where the play was going and what he was writing, even if the audience was not to be let in on all the plans. His confidence in his skill and his vision makes the play work.

The "mysteries" of the play are not neatly wrapped up. Like the aforementioned subway conversation, Butterworth leaves you to fill in the holes. You bring to this play your own relationships and your experiences. There was something luxurious and freeing about that. That freedom coupled with the lack of signposts in the play gave me a feeling of being suspended in the air. Butterworth holds that tension like a beautiful note of music and it was enough to sustain me.

I'm not much of an outdoorsy person, but I happen to like birdwatching. What is always so incredible about birdwatching is when you are paying attention to the woods or fields around you, you hear every sound. You become attuned to even the smallest movement around you. Your senses become heightened and re-directed at things you might otherwise tune out in your day-to-day life.

I found The River had the same effect on me. Dealing in the ephemeral sights and sounds of nature, love, and relationships, The River transports the audience to another place, time, and world. But you are left to find your own way home and you must listen, you must look around you, you must become aware. Like nature itself, that journey can be beautiful, terrifying, mysterious, and intoxicating. But to truly experience nature you must give in to all those sensations even if it means only understanding an infinitesimal amount of what you are actually feeling.

VARIETY

Review: ‘The River’



Is it a ghost story or something more ghastly? The one thing that's certain about Jez Butterworth's enigmatic "The River" is that Ian Rickson's spellbinding production could not be bettered.


David Benedict


Is it a ghost story or something more ghastly? The one thing that’s certain about Jez Butterworth’s enigmatic “The River,” his first play since the trans-Atlantic success story that was “Jerusalem,” is that Ian Rickson’s spellbinding production could not be bettered. Across 80 quiet, rivetingly intense minutes, inexorable threat curdles into dread. Yet as the play finishes with its puzzle, for the most part, solved, you’re left with the feeling that immaculate acting, design and direction are flattering faintly derivative material.

Like Butterworth’s earlier plays “The Night Heron” and “The Winterling,” the action (or lack thereof) of “The River” takes place in a remote rural setting. In Ultz’s beautifully realized wood cabin, old and low-ceilinged, an unnamed man (Dominic West) is trying to persuade his equally nameless new girlfriend (Miranda Raison) to join him for some night-fishing.

Although the nicely shrewd Raison is initially unpersuadable, the implication at the end of the opening scene is that she’ll join him in the dark. But moments later it’s clear that events haven’t gone according to plan and tension rockets as we discover West frantically calling the police because she’s gone missing. Mercifully, she suddenly reappears. Or does she?

Butterworth pulls a switch here that it would be ruinous to reveal. He exerts a narrative grip by alerting audiences to the fact that West’s character is not only suspiciously unreliable but that almost everything he says may not be truthful. The air almost palpably thickens with unease, and audiences turn detective.

As events proceed, everything that has been taken for granted in the opening setup begins to unravel. Butterworth has previously drawn on Pinter as a model and here, the man caught between two women, one of whom may or may not be there, is a definite echo of “Old Times.” Hints are dropped, and Raison’s fearful suspicions lead to revelations that expose less a whodunit than a what-has-he-done? Yet, unlike with Pinter, Butterworth’s over-reliance upon the twists of a plot, with the writer withholding vital information, reveals a weakness in the writing that ultimately undercuts the impressive chill that he so winningly conjures in the moment-by-moment dialogue.

The latter features hugely poetic passages, rich though somewhat self-conscious, extolling the virtues of the almost spiritual nature of fishing. They’re balanced by scenes of fearful tension which are a gift for actors, especially when directed by Rickson.

As his original production of Conor McPherson’s not dissimilar “The Weir” proved, he is a master at mapping actors onto naturalistic text. He elicits and shapes unforced, exquisitely calibrated performances from his actors who, by never overstating an emotion, draw audiences into the character’s dilemmas.

With the women carefully presented as balanced opposites, both Raison and Laura Donnelly are slightly limited, but each of them handle pace and mood with unflashy control. West’s character, the focus of the play, offers far more opportunities, all realized. West’s initially bluff demeanor gives way to something infinitely sadder. And the extended silent scene in which he guts a fish with a sharp knife and matter-of-factly but happily makes dinner is a perfect example of actor, director and writer operating in fascinating harmony.

Charles Balfour’s superbly atmospheric lighting suggests that the tiny cabin is lit almost exclusively by hurricane lamps and candles. The fact that it’s not is indicative of the production’s unobtrusive visual control of the extremely intimate space. It completely vindicates the decision to stage the play — for which was there was unparalleled pre-opening demand — in a 93-seat venue.

Everything about “The River” demands intimacy. If it is to transfer after its SRO-run, it needs to find a space not much bigger to continue to exert its grip. The energy required to play a wider, larger space would weaken the tension and reveal the play’s underlying artificiality

[jo]

New publicity image --



The cottage is well-lighted but the atmosphere seems chilly!

[jo]

Is this to imply that the play is mostly only about the character Hugh Jackman potrays ? Or that his character is actually much more than what the first pass of the play implies? Are there hidden depths?

Or is there a change in the cast? I have seen a recent interview with Cush Jumbo...but none for Laura Donnelly. Or is that to come later?


Jo

[jo]

Very enigmatic words -- do they describe what happens eventually?


Jo

[jo]

Is this the publicity poster at Circle in the Square ?



Anyone?





Jo

[jo]

[jo]

Hugh Jackman @realhughjackman · 1h

How to prepare for a Broadway play about fishing???
Go golfing!!!
With Ian Rickson, Laura Donnelly and…

http://instagram.com/p/rjcL1FihK8

thehughjackman
1 hour ago
How to prepare for a Broadway play about fishing??? Go golfing!!! With Ian Rickson, Laura Donnelly and Cush Jumbo @theriverplay

Just as I earlier speculated -- he might use the opportunity while he is in England while filming PAN in London to start early preparations for THE RIVER


Jo

[jo]

Cush Jumbo ‏@cushjumbo · 1h
@theriverplay Prepping for a Broadway show about fishing? Go Golfing! @realhughjackman @ianrickson & Laura Donnelly pic.twitter.com/f3LLBd4vW9

[jo]

Some funny response posts to the Instagram photo uploaded by Hugh --

susandtimlin
Hugh....My sister! (Can she actually play golf??)

Susan is Laura Donnelly's sister. I had wondered about the two women because they were not wearing golfing shoes ...neither it seems does Ian Rickson ...Maybe they simply met Hugh after he played the game ( those look like golfing shoes on him?)?

kristina_bales
Does this mean you're growing your hair back!?

Everybody wants to know

clairelilas
@thehughjackman What's the name of this fishing play? Going to be on broadway this year?

A fishing play - LOL! Hope Hugh's tweet has not misled people giggle


Jo

[jo]

The River Broadway ‏@theriverplay · 2h
@cushjumbo @realhughjackman @ianrickson And so it begins. #TheRiver

[jo]

And now comes an article on THE OTHER WOMAN - Laura Donnelly!

www.enstarz.com/articles/43550/20140811/the-river-on-broadway-laura-donnelly-dishes-on-the-other-woman-working-with-hugh-jackman-more-exclusive.htm

'The River' On Broadway: Laura Donnelly Dishes On The Other Woman, Working With Hugh Jackman & More [EXCLUSIVE]

By Leila Falls, EnStars
on Aug 11, 2014 01:53 PM EDT



Actress Laura Donnelly will star opposite Hugh Jackman in Broadway's 'The River.' (Photo : Jonny Storey)

Laura Donnelly will make her Broadway debut as The Other Woman opposite The Man, Hugh Jackman, for his reappearance on the stage this fall. The plot of The River remains secretive with teasers hinting a dark-theme that unravels when a fisherman is caught up with two women. Donnelly, who first played the role at London's Royal Court Theatre in 2012, is ready to re-hook the audience with her performance.


The 32-year-old actress spoke to Enstars about the interesting audition process, working with Jackman and being on Broadway for the first time.


Enstars: What was your experience like auditioning for The River at the Royal Court Theatre?


Donnelly: My audition at the Royal Court was one of the most enjoyable and interesting auditions I've ever done. Ian Rickson [director] and Jez Butterworth [playwright] were both in the room and the first thing Ian asked me was how the play made me feel. It was such a great way to begin the process because he wasn't interested in discussing the plot or characters straight off but rather to find out what my instinct was telling me. That sparked some really interesting conversations about music and our favorite artists and other subjects that made me feel like we were all really on the same wavelength and that all three of us had made a real connection before we even read a word of a scene together.


Enstars: And now you're reprising your role for Broadway, what has that experience been like?


Donnelly: Broadway has always been an ultimate goal of mine so the very fact that I'm there at all is mind-blowing. But to be privileged enough to get my first experience of it in a play that I adore, playing a character I enjoy so much and in such trusted company is so exciting. And yet, because I'm among different actors... and we're beginning the whole process afresh it allows me to explore entirely new avenues in the play and my character as if this was the first time.


Enstars: How do you channel the character of The Other Woman?


Donnelly: Well I suppose most of the channeling is done during the rehearsal process. Exploring my character's needs and desires, making decisions about where she has come from and where she feels she is heading and particularly how the character of The Man affects that. That can include moments like finding songs and pictures and poems that I feel inspire me to explore her deeper and understand her better. Then when it comes to actual performance I like to feel that anything useful from that process has seeped in and that I can just go on stage, forget about it and play.


Enstars: What has it been like working with Hugh Jackman?


Donnelly: To say Hugh Jackman is a lovely man would be a massive understatement. From the first moment I met him when I auditioned for him in London he made me feel so at ease in his presence. As an actor he is incredibly inspirational because he has such a level of enthusiasm, energy and playfulness that he brings every day and he is so willing to explore and try anything that might help the process.


Enstars: What's you're favorite part of being on Broadway?


Donnelly: Broadway has such a unique atmosphere, there is genuinely nowhere else like it. There is a palpable buzz that exists around the whole area and a sense that everyone is there for the same reason and that is that they love what they do. And the fact that I get to live in New York for several months - a city I have always loved visiting and in which I had hoped to one day work - is a real bonus.


Enstars: What are you looking most forward to when it opens?


Donnelly: I'm most looking forward to being able to try new things every night on stage. At the Royal Court we only had three weeks of performance and when we finished I felt so strongly that I wasn't done with my character - that I had only just begun to explore her and the play. So to get to take a whole fresh look at it and really play with it every night for months, not knowing what may come from that and from the other actors - that's what I'm most excited about.


The mystery-filled production will open on Broadway on Nov. 16.

[jo]

Hugh's chemistry works with every leading lady he has had the opportunity to perform with --

who's your favorite one for the perfect chemistry with Hugh?

Mine are Nicole Kidman and Rachel Weisz...although the chemistry with his young XMEN ward, Anna Paquin, was also a strong one

Heck, he also has excellent chemistry with his male co-stars ( Russell Crowe, Christian Bale, Jake Gyllenhaal, Ewan McGregor, even Patrick Stewart and Ian Mckellen...and Jarrod Emick)!


But we'll see how he and his new leading ladies will do justice to the tension-filled and romantic air of the mysterious The River.

Jo

[jo]

At the Royal Court we only had three weeks of performance and when we finished I felt so strongly that I wasn't done with my character - that I had only just begun to explore her and the play. So to get to take a whole fresh look at it and really play with it every night for months, not knowing what may come from that and from the other actors - that's what I'm most excited about

Whenever I have a chance to see a show ( musical or straight play) - where I have to fly in from halfway across the world, I always try to see it after the show and the actors have settled in ( ideally after more than a month up to two months or so -- that is just my own take). Also, if the show is playing in the spring, I think the week before the TONYs are a good bet to see outstanding performances.

Jo

[carouselkathy]

Jo,
Not coming from as far as you are, but have to come during Thanksgiving break because of work. So, I'll be there earlier in the run, but I like your philosophy of being there later in the run. Although, I may try to come back during spring break to see Kelli O'Hara in THE KING AND I. Have to get my Rodgers and Hammerstein fix! If THE RIVER is still playing in the spring, I'm there...if my budget and school schedule allow it. Do you think Hugh would actually commit to that long of an extension? I'm not so sure he would, but Kelli in TK&I would be worth another trip in the spring.

[jo]

Kathy,

I doubt that there will be an extension.

*Circle in the Square is welcoming a new show in time for an official opening in the third week of April ( cutoff for the TONY nominations), which means they will need the theatre for a month or more prior to previews. Of course Hugh might take a leaf from Audra's book and allow a little longer run

*But knowing his ever busy schedule ( especially with potential filming commitments), that seems unlikely. We don't know if he is going to be part of XMEN:APOCALYPSE ( which will likely start filming in late winter/late spring to meet its May 2016 release date) so I assumed that Hugh committed to a stage run for the fall to early winter of 2014 to free him up for moviemaking afterwards. Plus we do not know what other prospects he is mulling over at the moment.

Hey, we might run into each other at CITS

I am also visiting NYC from before Thanksgiving to early December ( family and Hugh...and other NYC attractions)

Have you read the play again? For those who have not read it - I am marking my next question with a spoiler tag.

SPOILER: Click to show

Have you noted the mysterious element at the end?

I am getting more excited now to see how the written word will play out onstage with such a cast of fine actors and an excellent director.

King and I - I doubt that I will be taking another trip in the spring. I have seen a revival of King and I in London with Elaine Paige... and hopefully the Lincoln Center production will be more impressive than the one I saw ( it was disappointing for me). I am glad that the Rodgers and Hammerstein portfolio gets regular airings



Jo

[jo]

From the Official site --

Additional Info:

Recommended for ages 14+.
THE RIVER is 90 minutes long with no intermission.

Have they added another 10 minutes to the play staging? If I remember correctly, the staging time in London was for 80 minutes. Maybe they wanted to add more drama or simply to make it sound more riveting even as it continues to be enigmatic? Or to add clarity to its perceived ambiguity?

The Guardian's Michael Billington wrote the play, at London's Royal Court, "confirms that Butterworth possesses a singular talent".

But he added: "I only wish that more people could get to see it."

No seats are sold in advance with a daily allocation online and the rest available in person at the box office.

Billington wrote: "I spy a danger for the theatre in a new form of chic exclusivity."

He added: "At 80 minutes, it is strange, eerie, tense and, on a single viewing, slightly unfathomable. This is not, in the end, as resonant and public a play as Jerusalem. But it adopts a similarly equivocal attitude to its hero."



Charles Spencer, writing in The Telegraph, praised Butterworth's writing and also the play's direction.

"In Ian Rickson's expertly judged production the play grips throughout its 80 minute running time. It is also beautifully written 'mixing memory with desire' in TS Eliot's haunting phrase from The Waste Land."

He also hailed the performers, Dominic West, Miranda Raison and Laura Donnelly.

"West suggests darker depths beneath the central character's apparently innocent, love-struck enthusiasm, and makes Butterworth's thrilling nature writing really sing. And there are two neatly defined and contrasting performances from Miranda Raison and Laura Donnelly as the two women."

Now it is below the $ 2 per minute cost, as complained about on theatre boards - LOL!

Will the show participate in the BC/EFA campaign this year? That should add more viewing time of Hugh Jackman


Jo