Hugh Jackman in THE RIVER on Broadway

[jo]

The River ( aka Take Me Out 2 )

giggle

[birchie]

Aug 24, 2014 23:27:40 GMT -5 mamaleh said:

SIDE SHOW is pretty much a cult musical. I hope it does well on Broadway, but I have my doubts. The original Broadway production failed. It's really such a big gamble, especially without Big Names--the exceptions being phenomena such as THE LION KING, WICKED and THE BOOK OF MORMON.

Ellen

Did you see the original, Ellen? I know in some of Bruce's videos he mentioned that a lot of changes were being made. It is an odd story but apparently based on fact. If you see the new version you'll have to write a review for us
Sue

[mamaleh]

I've listened to the score numerous times, but I didn't see that '97 production. I'll probably see the revised version, mostly out of curiosity. It's loosely based on the lives of the Hilton sisters (no, not Paris & Nicky)--but real-life conjoined twins, Violet and Daisy, who were vaudeville performers.

Ellen

[jo]

A lot of pre-fall publicity features on the coming season!

A lot of polls to vote in - LOL!

broadwaysbestshows.com/buzz/news/2014/08/25/broadway-poll-what-are-you-most-excited-to-see-next-on-broadway/

The River ranks only behind It's Only A Play.

This is the site which had previously described the play as "Erotic, chilling and poetic" ...Maybe they have seen the London production or read the play?



Btw, I think the publicity people at THE RIVER should give some of the sites a better description of the show. USA TODAY which has a very wide reach had a boring description of the play, as written by theatre critic Elysa Gardner.

www.usatoday.com/story/life/theater/2014/08/26/fall-broadway-listings/13908533/

The River (previews begin Oct. 31/opens Nov. 16)

Circle in the Square

Hugh Jackman is back onstage, this time as a fisherman, one of three characters in a new play by Jez Butterworth (Jerusalem, Mojo). Laura Donnelly and Cush Jumbo play the others, and Ian Rickson directs the Royal Court Theatre production, which originated in London (where Dominic West starred).

Who would want to see a play about a fisherman ( which to me connotes as someone who earns his living through commercial fishing) - LOL! The Man is an avid fishing enthusiast but the play, while using some metaphors on the delight of fishing which are both poetic and mysterious, is essentially an enigmatic look at what possible dark mystery may lay behind his relationship (s) with the woman( women?).

Jo

[jo]

From a chat with fans hosted by the New York Daily News --

You're back on Broadway in the fall in 'The River,' which producer Sonia Friedman described to us as "very intimate, a tone poem." What drew you to this Jez Butterworth work?

by Bwaybound May 22 at 12:35 AM
..


The writing. The fact that it's new, unexpected and I think audiences will have no idea what that 90 minutes is going to bring.

by Hugh Jackman May 22 at 12:35 AM



And Ian Rickson, the director, is sensational.

by Hugh Jackman May 22 at 12:36 AM

So, the additional 10 minutes have been put in even before they started selling tickets to the show? Maybe Jez Butterworth worked on the revised play after its London staging ( which supposedly only ran for 80 minutes, according to many reviews)?

Jo

[jo]

The Broadway League is likely doing a tremendous job publicizing the new theatrical offerings - this time, it is the widely-circulated ASSOCIATED PRESS ( AP) which reports on the new season openings --

abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/bway-season-features-sting-jackman-peter-pan-25158381?singlePage=true

B'way Season Features Sting, Jackman and Peter Pan



NEW YORK — Aug 28, 2014, 9:18 AM ET

By MARK KENNEDY AP Drama Writer

Associated Press



The coming Broadway season has something for everyone — a musical by Sting, a magician-filled SUV, the incomparable Hugh Jackman, the equally regal Helen Mirren, a musical set in a funeral parlor and not one, but two Gyllenhaals. Here's a look at some highlights of the 2014-15 season:

STARS, STARS, STARS

You want A-listers? Broadway listened. Bradley Cooper, Michael Cera, Hugh Jackman, Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal, Ewan McGregor, Glenn Close, Gretchen Mol, Kristin Chenoweth, Helen Mirren, James Earl Jones, Matthew Broderick, Tavi Gevinson, Nathan Lane, Rose Byrne, Alan Alda, Brian Dennehy, Mia Farrow, Candice Bergen, Cynthia Nixon, Kristin Chenoweth, Carol Burnett, Anjelica Huston and Tony Danza.

REVIVE, REVIVE

It wouldn't be a new Broadway season without some revivals: "Side Show" returns for a second time; Tom Stoppard's "The Real Thing" for a third time in October; Edward Albee's "A Delicate Balance" for a third time in the fall; "The Elephant Man" for third time starting in November; and the screwball comedy "Noises Off" for a third time next winter.

OLD SCHOOL

Producers have dug deep into America's past to pull out four classic tales: The play "You Can't Take It With You," by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, which first debuted in 1936, comes back in September; the 1944 show "On the Town," with music by Leonard Bernstein and book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, returns in October; "An American in Paris," an adaptation of the 1951 Gene Kelly film, comes in spring; and another Comden-Green comedy, "On the Twentieth Century," steams into town in February.

YOU HAD US AT HUGH

Hugh Jackman is coming back this fall in "The River" by Jez Butterworth, but does it really matter what he's doing? For the record, the play, the first since Butterworth's "Jerusalem," is about a trout fisherman in a remote cabin who is visited by two of the women in his life. It's new and moody but Jackman is box-office catnip — his one-man show in 2011 routinely sold out, as did "The Boy From Oz" in 2003 and "A Steady Rain" with Daniel Craig in 2009

More...

[jo]

From NYCity Theatre.com --

www.newyorkcitytheatre.com/theaters/circleinthesquaretheater/the-river.php

Hugh Jackman returns to the stage In one of the most highly anticipated castings this Broadway season, stage and screen star, and our 2014 Tony Awards host Hugh Jackman returns to The Great White Way! He plays the lead in this new production of award-winning playwright Jez Butterworth's acclaimed (albeit disturbing) play, The River, which is set to run a strictly limited engagement of just 13 weeks at the Circle In The Square Theatre. Jez Butterworth is a playwright known for works which toy with the darker side of human nature. His play 'Jerusalem' opened on Broadway in 2011 where it was nominated for a Tony award.

Like its predecessor, The River is a bewitching play written in Butterworth's very poetic and often quite searching style which presents man's wild nature alongside the wildness of nature itself.

What is The River about? The nature of the play and its inherent mystery means that the finer details of its plot and characters should be kept a secret. We can, however, reveal the following: The Man (our nameless and rugged central character) has whisked his new lover away to a remote woodland cabin where he wants to go trout fishing in the darkness of the new moon. As the play evolves we become less sure about his intentions... or of the nature of his relationship with those he entertains at his cabin. "And the next day I went back to the river, and I took off my clothes and I dived in the water, and I looked for the fish, and I couldn't find it, but when I surfaced, I was holding something. Something else." ...

It lists the play's running time at 80 minutes, which was probably assumed from the London staging.

Jo

[jo]

At last, an interview where he talks extensively about THE RIVER ( part of the Vulture interview found on the thread MULTI-TOPIC INTERVIEWS ) --

www.vulture.com/2014/08/hugh-jackman-fly-fishes-his-way-to-the-river.html

Well, people certainly go insane when you sing and dance. When you do something like Back on Broadway that gets such a huge reaction, does it make you want to do something in the opposite direction — like this play — next?

I don’t know if I think that way actually. Certainly, in general I miss theater and want to get back more to that, but weirdly I'm enjoying film more and I think acting in general more now. There is a high when a musical is working; when you’re onstage singing in front of a crowd, the applause is very visceral, it’s ultimately an emotional response. The drug of that kind of audience enthusiasm is one I’d be reluctant to let go of. But I think what’s driving me now more than anything is to do new material. I get really excited to go and see a play or musical I know nothing about — like I saw Fun Home recently, that thrilled me. I obviously like revivals, too, but it’s hard to get your mind or part of your mind away from comparisons. There’s a great joy in discovering new material.


Why do you think acting has felt more enjoyable lately?

So many things happened to me early on — for instance, it was a huge shock to me when I first did a musical in Australia, because I trained as an actor. I thought I’d do straight theater if anything. And then there were movies and it was, “Okay, well, I didn’t expect that.” But I thin
k having done it for 15 or 20 years now, having managed to practice at it I suppose, maybe I feel a little more confident than I did originally. Not over-confident, don’t worry about that. But confident enough to look forward to the challenge and not feel overwhelmed. Maybe it’s some form of mid-life thing, realizing, hey, this is a great play this is New York, make the most of it. I’m just feeling a great balance between the challenge of things and also the enjoyment of it...




What was your first meeting with Jez Butterworth like? He’s this strange combination of being a dark playwright who also writes blockbuster movies .

Jez is very kind of .., he has a demeanor of someone who’s like, “Oh, gee, thanks for inviting me to lunch.” I’m like, man! You wrote this incredible play! He’s very off the back foot. One of the first things I asked him was what motivated him to write this story — because I was really affected by the story emotionally, which doesn’t always happen. And he said he wanted to give goosebumps. It’s mysterious, you don’t know what’s happening next, you’re not 100 percent sure where the actors or the writer is going to go to the point where it gives you goosebumps. But I just loved he has a child’s quality, of being very curious, very humble.


Did you see Jerusalem?

I thought that was extraordinary. And again, it was one of those rare experiences where you walk in not knowing what to expect and, wow, you’re completely transported and blown away. I got the sense there’s that possibility with this play as well. But I actually think they’re very different. I think he deliberately wanted to write something quite different; ours is much shorter, like 89 minutes. In Jerusalem, Rooster is a very bombastic, larger-than-life character. This is not like that, it’s in a way like a piece of chamber music; it’s more subtle, there’s a poetic edge to it, though I think Jerusalem had that too. There’s obviously a love of poetry in Jez’s blood. But that also hooks into his love of fishing! That is something I knew nothing about, and I'm learning a hell of a lot about fly fishing.


I was going to say — fishing is rather central to the play, are you an outdoorsman of any sort?

Well I’m a mad lover of the outdoors, but I didn’t grow up with fishing. My son is madly into it, so I’m happy now to go out with him. I’m in a bit of trouble because I took him to Montana in March and said, you know, let’s fly fish, it’ll be a father son trip, but come October he’s going to realize it was a research trip. I’ll make it a few months before I get slapped around a bit.


It seems like a very oddly Zen thing, fly fishing?

It’s an extraordinary kind of endeavor, very human — how to take something that’s really about survival and make it harder than it has to be. [Laughs.] There is a beauty to it; it’s really becoming one with the fish, understanding the fish, how to seduce them to the end of your line. How to catch something without any bait, there’s something really beautiful about it. Jez has used it both literally and metaphorically in the play. It is sensual, I should say. Everyone who does it talks about how their mind goes blank, it’s like a form of meditation. And the people who do it, it’s like a drug to them — you’re connected to something very elemental in nature, and I think that’s what the play explores.


The play does have a quietness about it — is keeping things at that kind of level a challenge for you?

Yeah. Maybe I’ve done too many action movies. But there are no explosions, I guarantee — no shirts come off, I’m pretty sure. [Laughs.] No, it is different in every way. It’s the kind of play I haven’t seen in a long period of time. Literally from the moment it opens, you’re brought into a world where the audience will feel almost uncomfortable to be there — it’s very private, very interior. It really asks, when you find someone in life, are we actually just trying to recapture something we’ve lost, or is it real. The play twists and turns a lot, but in a very subtle, quiet, mysterious way. I’m excited about being in a play with that kind of calm, and requires you to sort of calmly let go of your life and connect with the play. And the fact that we’re doing it in the round? It’s going to be very intimate.


Yeah, you’re playing at I think one of the smallest theaters on Broadway I think …

The Circle in the Square. I should tell you, the first play I ever saw on Broadway — I had standing room only tickets to see Al Pacino in Huey. I’ll never forget it; we attempted to go three days in a row. They had eight tickets up for grabs they’d give at ten o'clock in the morning. The first morning we went there at eight, the line was already 20 deep. The second morning we went at seven, on the third day I was there at five-thirty in the morning with my wife, and we were numbers seven and eight in the line. So we got to know all those people pretty well. We got to the play, just as the lights went down the usher said, “There’s two seats down in the second row, would you like them?” I thought, This is the greatest day ever. It was again a one-act play. We were up so early, my wife fell asleep about ten minutes into the play. Al Pacino was no more than eight feet away from my wife, staring straight at her. Be warned, if you come and fall asleep I know I will see you. But given my experience, I’ll forgive you.

[jo]

But I think what’s driving me now more than anything is to do new material. I get really excited to go and see a play or musical I know nothing about — like I saw Fun Home recently, that thrilled me. I obviously like revivals, too, but it’s hard to get your mind or part of your mind away from comparisons. There’s a great joy in discovering new material.

He has been fairly consistent about this attitude in doing theatre. A Steady Rain was one such challenge - and even more so because the material was written by an unknown playwright.

And maybe that is also what drives him about his choices of film scripts ( playing the main villain Blackbeard, for one). It must also be a scholarly curiousity that challenges him to see how he can handle new material. Remember how he immediately offered to take the trifecta roles in THE FOUNTAIN after Darren Aronoksky lent him the script the day before? And how he actively sought and pursued the role of Jean Valjean as soon as Patrick Whitesell told him about it - this was new material for him because a film adaptation of a stage musical would have its share of interesting challenges ( there were inevitable comparisons, but unfortunately this was from the point of view of musical theatre staging).

His choices range from the uber-dramatic to the comical. From action spectacles to musicals. From hero to villain. From above-the-title to cameo!

Too bad HOUDINI did not pan out for him. That would have been such a challenge for him, too.


Jo

[jo]

Ben Brantley, the NY Times theatre critic ( and fan of Hugh Jackman ) talks about a coming season that is filled with compact and intense dramatic offerings, which of course include THE RIVER!

www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/theater/fall-arts-preview-the-river-constellations-and-into-the-woods-to-open.html?action=click&contentCollection=Theater®ion=Footer&module=MoreInSection&pgtype=article

Theater | The New Season

Short, Spare and Spirited

Hugh Jackman in ‘The River,’ One of Several Compact Shows


By BEN BRANTLEY SEPT. 3, 2014



Keep it simple. Keep it short.

Those dictums, so often and so disastrously ignored by campaigning politicians and banquet speakers, would appear to be words to live by for many of this season’s more tantalizing shows. Perhaps heeding the advice of Michelle Obama, the New York theater has gone on a diet for autumn, shedding the bloat of “Hamlet”-length dramas and overdecorated musicals.

To approach the expansive running time of, say, a “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” you would need to combine several of this fall’s most anticipated, star-studded productions. A slate made up of Jez Butterworth’s “The River” (a three-character, 80-minute drama starring Hugh Jackman), Nick Payne’s “Constellations” (an even shorter two-hander with Jake Gyllenhaal) and the Wooster Group’s “Early Shaker Spirituals” (with an ensemble that includes Frances McDormand) would account for about three and a half hours of stage traffic.

As for sets and costumes, well, think in terms of the direct opposite of a Broadway extravaganza like “Wicked.” That applies even when the show is an elaborate musical fantasia like the Fiasco Theater’s revival of the Stephen Sondheim-James Lapine classic “Into the Woods.”

It was the venerated director Peter Brook who said that when “a man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him,” then you have “all that is needed for an act of theater to be engaged.” Mr. Brook wrote those words nearly a half-century ago in “The Empty Space,” his much cited 1968 bible for spartans of the theater, and he continues to practice what he preaches.

His latest work, “The Valley of Astonishment,” which opens this month at the Polonsky Shakespeare Theater in Brooklyn, courtesy of Theater for a New Audience, features a cast of three and a set consisting of a few chairs, a table or two and a coat rack. Yet what Mr. Brook and his longtime collaborator Marie-Hélène Estienne are exploring is hardly elementary. Their daunting subject is synesthesia, a rare affliction (or is it a blessing?) in which the senses blend together, so that music, for example, might be perceived as color.


Embodying people with synesthesia and the doctors who study and counsel them, the performers (who include the chameleon par excellence Kathryn Hunter) ask us to try to feel as their characters feel, to see with our ears instead of our eyes or to translate sounds into colors. Previously staged at the Young Vic in London, where I saw it this summer, “Valley” becomes a ringing testament to the leap of faith that theater always, on some level, requires.

Photo



Hugh Jackman Credit Ben Watts

A comparably ambitious goal is set by Mr. Payne’s “Constellations,” which recalibrates the basic boy-meets-girl story through theories of high-level physics. Memorably presented in 2012 at the Royal Court Theater in London, where it starred Sally Hawkins and Rafe Spall, this intensely concentrated drama pursues an ever-splintering series of paths that might or might not be taken by a man and the young scientist he falls for.

That production’s director, Michael Longhurst, returns for the Manhattan Theater Club’s Broadway version of “Constellations,” which begins previews in December at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater. The role of the man who gives new credence to the idea of the divided self will be taken by Mr. Gyllenhaal, who did nicely by Mr. Payne’s dialogue in “If There Is I Haven’t Found It Yet,” in which he made his New York stage debut two years ago.

Photo



Marcello Magni in “The Valley of Astonishment.” Credit Pascal Victor/Artcomart

When Mr. Butterworth’s “The River” showed up in 2012 for a limited run in the tiny Jerwood Theater Upstairs at the Royal Court (the very place where “Constellations” had opened nine months earlier), The Guardian’s Michael Billington had one serious reservation: “I only wish that more people could get in to see it.”

Mr. Billington’s wish will surely be granted when “The River” opens in November at the Circle in the Square Theater, which has at least 10 times the seats of the Royal Court’s Upstairs space. There should be no problem filling those seats because the play is by Mr. Butterworth, whose “Jerusalem” was one of the most talked-about Broadway plays of the past decade, and it stars — what’s that guy’s name again? — oh yeah, Hugh Jackman.

Photo



The Fiasco Theater’s revival of the Stephen Sondheim-James Lapine classic “Into the Woods” is a stripped-down production. Credit T. Charles Erickson

The last time Mr. Jackman appeared on Broadway in a straight play, in Keith Huff’s “A Steady Rain” in 2009, it was as part of a cast of two, the other star being Daniel Craig. In “The River,” an eerie and imagistic tale of shifting identities in a rural cabin, Mr. Jackman is allowed the luxury of two other performers, Laura Donnelly and Cush Jumbo. He also has the privilege of a top-flight director in Ian Rickson, whose earlier work on Broadway includes “Jerusalem” and the magnificent “The Seagull,” starring Kristin Scott Thomas.

Though it is nominally a tale told by a single voice, that of a young woman contemplating suicide, the TR Warszawa theater company’s adaptation of Sarah Kane’s “4.48 Psychosis” has an ensemble of five. Reimagined as the dialogue of a woman with her doctors, demons and other selves, this fragmented account of a life nearing its end was described in The Guardian as “a powerful, almost unbearable evening” during its London run in 2010. Grzegorz Jarzyna’s production arrives in October at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn, where his marvelously creepy “Festen (the Celebration)” was seen in 2012.

Photo



Frances McDormand, center, in the Wooster Group’s “Early Shaker Spirituals,” which is a short but resonant work that finds richness in austerity. Credit Emily Andrews for The New York Times

St. Ann’s Warehouse will also be the setting for the welcome return of “Early Shaker Spirituals,” the Wooster Group’s inspired interpretation of a historic recording. Directed by Kate Valk, “Shaker Spirituals” became one of New York’s most coveted tickets at the Performing Garage in SoHo this year. Sung and danced by an ensemble that includes Ms. McDormand and the Wooster Group’s artistic director, Elizabeth LeCompte, this short and resonant work finds the richness in ostensible austerity.

A musical work of a very different stripe will be given the less-is-more treatment at the Laura Pels Theater, starting in December. “Into the Woods,” Mr. Sondheim and Mr. Lapine’s 1986 revisionist mash-up of classic fairy tales, has been stripped down to a production that uses a single piano and a multifarious cast of 10. I saw this interpretation from the Fiasco Theater, which specializes in bare-bones showmanship, last year at the McCarter Theater in Princeton, so I can vouch that nakedness, in this case, is most flattering to “Into the Woods.”

This show, for the record, is not to be confused with the forthcoming film version of “Into the Woods,” which features a starry cast and lavish special effects. Like the other shows discussed here, this one demands that you bring your imagination to the theater and put it to work as a full-time artistic collaborator.

Hey

There should be no problem filling those seats because the play is by Mr. Butterworth, whose “Jerusalem” was one of the most talked-about Broadway plays of the past decade, and it stars — what’s that guy’s name again? — oh yeah, Hugh Jackman.

I hope the message board people who were complaining about the "$ 2 per minute" plays would read Ben Brantley's fresh outlook about the coming season of playgoing! LOL - maybe the publicists for THE RIVER can already pull the above quotes for their marketing campaign

[jo]

In “The River,” an eerie and imagistic tale of shifting identities in a rural cabin,

New word for me - LOL!

Imagism

Imagism was a movement in early 20th-century Anglo-American poetry that favored precision of imagery and clear, sharp language. It has been described as the most influential movement in English poetry since the activity of the Pre-Raphaelites.

Imagism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jo

[jo]

Another plug for THE RIVER (and the plays with Glenn Close and Frances McDormand) --

www.oregonlive.com/performance/index.ssf/2014/09/glenn_close_returns_to_broadwa.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Glenn Close, Hugh Jackman return to Broadway; plan accordingly


David Stabler | [e-mail] By David Stabler | [e-mail]

on September 03, 2014 at 11:49 AM, updated September 03, 2014 at 11:50 AM


Planning a trip to New York this fall? You might want to catch a couple of stars who are returning to Broadway.

Glenn Close, a three-time Tony Award winner, returns to Times Square for the first time in 20 years. She'll star in Edward Albee's "A Delicate Balance," which won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1967...


-- Hugh Jackman stars in "The River." Jackman last appeared on Broadway in a straight play in Keith Huff's "A Steady Rain" in 2009, alongside Daniel Craig of James Bond fame. Jez Butterworth, who wrote the astonishing "Jerusalem," is the playwright. "The River" opens in November.


-- It's off-off Broadway, but Frances McDormand stars in "Early Shaker Spirituals" in Brooklyn's St. Ann's Warehouse in October...

[jo]

Hugh Jackman @realhughjackman · 28m

Can't even wait to get started ..@theriverplay

http://instagram.com/p/skMZNZihK1

He truncated the image of the poster and unwittingly took out his name


Jo

[jo]

More publicity on Hugh's return to Broadway ( mainly using the Vulture interview), on an acting website --

www.dailyactor.com/2014/09/hugh-jackman-return-to-broadway/


Hugh always makes news, especially those with emphasis on the theatre. I hope people no longer think that he is part of the current "en vogue" Hollywood A-listers dabbling on Broadway! That he is really part of the theatre community and embraces it as part of his full-time career.

Btw, from the same website, some screenplays are available ( e.g., Les Miserables) --

www.dailyactor.com/category/screenplays/


Jo

[jo]

www.franchiseherald.com/articles/6341/20140907/new-york-comic-con-2014-tickets-elementary-lucy-liu-johnny-miller.htm

The hype is on for the biggest and grandest popular culture convention in the US with the New York Comic Con 2014 tickets continuously sold online and in selected shops.

Dubbed by CNN as "a force to be reckoned with", the New York Comic Convention 2014 will run from October 9 to 12 at the Javits Center, New York. Per tradition, the convention aims to please the dedicated fans of comics, graphic novels, anime, manga, video games, toys, movies, and television shows as it also helps promote enterprises in the entertainment industry...

It's true what CNN said. As a force, the NYCC website is a good leverage for marketing movies, shows, and products not related to convention to attract the public. Japan's XMSG show (The Biggest Rockers In Asia) at the Madison Square Garden is advertised there, Chevrolet 2014 Corvette Stingray, as well as Hugh Jackman's "The River" on Broadway...

I bet this is the only Broadway play being advertised at the NY Comic Con in October


Can you imagine the excitement it will create if Hugh Jackman made an unexpected appearance ? The fanboys do come to see him on Broadway. There was one instance in one Back on Broadway show where he "played" with a young man who confessed he came because he wanted Wolverine's autograph. And the young man was seated at a premium seat

Plus the extemporaneous "Who Am I" ( Wolverine, The Musical) on BBC has actually received 3.5 million hits on the internet to date!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvRtKMxc88Q

Jo

[mamaleh]

Just saw my first TV commercial for THE RIVER (during CBS Sunday Morning). It's moody and haunting and features an image of Hugh wafting through the background.

[foxie]

Just saw my first commercial this am!

[jo]

Is this to kickstart the publicity campaign for THE RIVER?

Have we seen THE MAN now?


Jo

[jo]

The River Broadway ‏@theriverplay · 8h
TOMORROW: @realhughjackman discusses his role in #TheRiver on @fallontonight. Catch him at 11:35/10:35C on NBC. bit.ly/Yu7cbt

Atlas Hugh begins the heavy lifting ( carrying the show on his shoulders)


Jo

[jo]

www.standard.co.uk/goingout/theatre/well-take-manhattan-why-new-york-is-buzzing-with-new-british-plays-9723031.html

We'll take Manhattan: why New York is buzzing with new British plays


First it was our star actors, now it's our award-winning dramatists who are set to storm Broadway, says Matt Wolf, as a host of British plays transfer from London to the New York stage


Matt Wolf
Published: 10 September 2014
Updated: 10:40, 10 September 2014



When The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time starts performances at the Barrymore Theater on Broadway tonight, excitement surrounding the play will be amplified by a more general awareness in New York that the new British play is back.

Last season there wasn't a single new British play on Broadway, despite a now customary strong British line-up of actors on the New York stage (Mark Rylance, Ian McKellen and Daniel Craig, just for starters), all in revivals of plays by Pinter, Shakespeare and others.

Although the revivals continue this season as well — Ewan McGregor makes his Broadway debut on October 2 opposite Maggie Gyllenhaal in a new staging of Tom Stoppard’s 1982 play, The Real Thing — it’s the pile-up of new British plays that has New York abuzz. (Off Broadway, too, with Simon Stephens’s Punk Rock and Stoppard’s own Indian Ink leading the charge there.)

Curious Incident, about a 15-year-old maths prodigy who is happier with numbers than he is with people, has no star names on board for Broadway, preferring to let the title be the attraction in a culture that is as familiar with Mark Haddon’s source novel as we are here. The fact that the National Theatre production has already been shown in American cinemas via NT Live seems only to have heightened expectations. Marianne Elliott’s much-lauded production is now something of a London fixture — as her NT co-production with Tom Morris of War Horse has long been — and Broadway will itself be curious to see if lightning strikes twice, given that the American premiere of War Horse swept the Tony Awards in 2011, beating Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem for Best Play and winning in all five categories in which it was nominated.

Curious Incident is a more actor-centred piece, and it will be interesting to see if this new incarnation makes a star out of its unknown London-born leading man, 25-year-old Alex Sharp, the way the original did of Luke Treadaway, who won an Olivier for his performance.


Some British plays receive an exposure across the Atlantic that simply wasn’t possible back home. The River, Butterworth’s mysterious post-Jerusalem chamber play about love, loss and trout-fishing, was sold out before it started performances at the Royal Court in 2012, and its run in a 93-seat studio venue (starring The Wire’s Dominic West) meant it was experienced only by a privileged few. The play’s American debut, from October 31 at Circle in the Square, will also take place in one of Broadway’s smaller venues —though few New York playhouses are large enough for its star, Hugh Jackman, who has for some time been the biggest box-office draw on the American stage.

Quite what Broadway playgoers investing several hundred dollars to see their favourite song-and-dance man will make of a (beautiful) play that is as elliptical as it is spare remains to be seen. Whatever happens, expect the New York iteration of Butterworth’s deeply personal meditation on desire and deception to be the hottest ticket of the autumn.

A second play that began within the confines of the Royal Court’s studio space, Nick Payne’s Constellations, will grab the New York spotlight just before Christmas. Jake Gyllenhaal makes his Broadway debut in Payne’s emotionally heady two-hander about a couple’s intersecting lives, which won the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Play in 2012. Gyllenhaal inherits a role originated by Rafe Spall opposite a female co-star yet to be named.

Things really kick into gear with the approach of spring, as happens regularly in a city in which so much scheduling is directly awards-driven. The rush every year is to open shows within easy sighting of the late-April cut-off date for the Tonys, in much the same way that Hollywood saves a large share of its Oscar hopefuls for December premieres.

That explains the arrival in February of Peter Morgan’s The Audience, directed by Stephen Daldry, whose revival of David Hare’s Skylight starring Bill Nighy and Carey Mulligan also opens the following month. With The Audience, Helen Mirren as the Queen will get the chance to add a Tony to her haul of trophies. There’s been some nail-biting about the willingness of an American public to sit out a play about Elizabeth II’s weekly meetings with a parade of mostly unfamiliar prime ministers but the hope is that Mirren’s star wattage and Americans’ ongoing fascination with all things royal will carry the day.

Also circling New York in varying states of readiness are King Charles III, written by Mike Bartlett, and Shakespeare in Love, both with American producers involved with their London runs, as well as a hoped-for Broadway transfer for the Wolf Hall/Bring up the Bodies pairing that would require the sorts of New York resources usually reserved for big musicals.

How these Broadway aspirations will play out remains to be seen but one thing seems certain: we can expect to hear more than a few British accents from the podium come the Tonys next June.

Will Hugh's accent take after his British antecedents


Jo

[jo]

www.digitaljournal.com/pr/2176535

A summary of recommended new shows on Broadway.

The plays are categorized as either Musical or Comedy or Drama or Comedy/Drama, but THE RIVER has a different classification -- "MATURE" giggle

•The River (Mature)

Circle in the Square Theatre; Opening October 13, 2014
By Jez Butterworth, the author of Jerusalem, and starring Hugh Jackman, The River is teasing, erotic, haunting, and hushed. Perhaps the best way to describe this spell-binding new play is ask the question: when we find each other, are we trying to recapture someone we once lost?

Jo

[jo]

The New York Observer lists the Top Ten fall attractions on Broadway, among the new shows --

observer.com/2014/09/fall-arts-preview-top-10-theater-2/

Fall Arts Preview: Top 10 Theater

By Alexandra Peers | 09/10/14 9:00am


The good news is it’s an enticing season on Broadway, with shows likely to lure the tourists (Love Letters), the crowds (On the Town) and the jaded intellectuals (a new Neil LaBute). The bad news is that a lot of the shows are familiar revivals that feature Hollywood stars, a glamorous subset of actors with a pockmarked record of delivering live performance. But the very good news is that many of those stars are actually seasoned Broadway vets with a Tony or two.

Keep in mind, Hugh Jackman was Curly in Oklahoma at the Barbican long before he was ever Wolverine.



Here, a look at some of the more keenly awaited shows, in order of Opening Night.

The Fortress of Solitude

It’s an intriguing season for the Public Theater, with a what’s-that-all-about Civil War drama in three parts by Suzan-Lori Parks, plus this world premiere of a musical based on the Jonathan Lethem best seller. Set in 1970s New York, Fortress asks us to imagine what might happen “if two teenagers obsessed with superheroes began to believe they could fly.” The Public Theater; Opening: September 30


The Country House

Before she was Gwyneth Paltrow’s mom, Blythe Danner was a Broadway star known for her turns as the sensitive southern flowers of Tennessee Williams dramas. She’s got more backbone in this Chekhov-inspired show as the matriarch of a famous acting clan bickering in the Berkshires. Samuel J. Friedman Theatre; Opening October 2


The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Based on the novel by Mark Haddon, this British import soaked up the Olivier awards, including Best Play, in its West End incarnation. It tells the story of a teen with Asperger’s syndrome who, when suspected of killing his neighbor’s poodle, starts a search for the real culprit. It’s headed to Hollywood: Brad Pitt has already bought the film rights. Ethel Barrymore Theater; Opening October 5


Shakespeare Sonnets

BAM’s boffo bigger-than-ever Next Wave Festival features 15 theatrical productions this fall, including works by James Joyce, Beckett, and a brutally minimalist take, complete with saline drip, on Angels in America. Arguably the most anticipated show, at least by the “Sprockets” set, is this one. The Berliner Ensemble offers a surrealistic take of the Robert Wilson and Rufus Wainwright pop opera based on the Bard’s writings. BAM Howard Gilman Opera House; Opening October 7


It’s Only a Play

Laughing at the biz of Showbiz: Nathan Lane reteams with Producers pal Matthew Broderick, with fine-tuned support from F. Murray Abraham, Stockard Channing and Megan Mullally, in this Terrance McNally comedy of a Broadway cast nervously awaiting the reviews of their new show, The Golden Egg. Will art mimic life? Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre; Opening October 9


Disgraced

An M&A lawyer conceals his Muslim background, until his artist wife throws a fateful Upper East Side dinner party that alters his relationships irrevocably. The tense one-act has a 2013 Pulitzer Prize for drama, deafening buzz and a track record of success at Lincoln Center. Lyceum Theater; Opening October 23


The Last Ship

Sting writes a Broadway musical! Whether it will be as fine as The Who’s Tommy or as cringe-worthy as Bono and The Edge’s Spider-Man is a matter of considerable suspense. There were spotty reviews for its Chicago tryout, but the blue-collar tale of an Irish shipyard in trouble offers, no surprise, some rousing tunes. Neil Simon Theater; Opening October 26


The River

Arguably the most-awaited of the fall straight plays, Jez Butterworth’s The River is a dark and atmospheric telling of a fisherman’s night at a remote cabin. The gifted Mr. Jackman stars, but even he will have some shoes to fill: Mark Rylance won a Tony for his roaring performance as the lead in Mr. Butterworth’s last play, Jerusalem. Circle in the Square Theater; Opening November 16


Side Show

Here, Academy Award-winner and director Bill Condon resurrects a dark musical—it had a short but noted run on Broadway in 1997—loosely based on the lives of Daisy and Violet Hilton. The two “Siamese” twins joined at the hip toured the world as a vaudeville act in the 1920s and 1930s. Reviews for a Kennedy Center production earlier this year were rapturous. St. James Theater; Opening November 17


The Elephant Man

Handsome Bradley Cooper will play the Victorian-era “monster” John Merrick without the aid of mask or makeup in this Scott Ellis-directed production that opens late in the season. (Word is that Mr. Cooper has banned his matinee-idol photo from the marquee.) It’s an import from the Williamstown Theatre Festival, where the well-reviewed 2012 production was sold out. Booth Theater; Opening December 7

[jo]

In the TONIGHT SHOW, there is a moment when Hugh is shown with a PLAYBILL for THE RIVER.





Which reminds me - I need to get an Opening Night copy


Jo

[jo]

The River Broadway ‏@theriverplay · Jul 21
Hugh Jackman stars in THE RIVER. Follow our journey to Broadway.

Siobhan ‏@siomonroe · 4m
“@theriverplay: Hugh Jackman stars in THE RIVER. Follow our journey to Broadway.” TAKE MY MONEY

Sounds familiar - LOL!

[jo]

The video clip from TONIGHT re THE RIVER --

www.nbc.com/the-tonight-show/video/hugh-jackman-remembers-getting-al-pacinos-autograph/2811402

Are they repricing the RUSH/SRO seats? RUSH @ $ 35 and SRO @ $ 26? Or both @ $ 26 ?


Jo