The River : POSTSCRIPTS

[jo]

Watch out for CUSH JUMBO on American TV ( The Good Wife)--

wwd.com/eye/people/cush-jumbo-the-good-wife-hugh-jackman-10250452/

[jo]

THE RIVER is being staged in Canada --

www.broadwayworld.com/toronto/article/BWW-Interview-David-Ferrt-of-Coal-Mine-Theatres-THE-RIVER-20151028


It's good to know that with plays almost untested elsewhere apart from their original source, Hugh may be paving the way for new work ( STEADY RAIN, THE RIVER) to be seriously considered for stging elsewhere and gaining an appreciation foothold among playgoers. It can be difficult for excellent piece of theatre to go unnoticed, especially if nobody sings and dances

Jo

[jo]

The play is being restaged in a community-based theatre somewhere in the UK ( Leamington Spa) but it is being publicized in relation to Hugh's Broadway staging. Maybe because the limited run ( 2 weeks) of the London premiere at the Royal Court was seen by less than a hundred people per performance and is not that well known outside London? It does carry the name of popular British playwright Jez Butterworth, though!

twitter.com/LoftTheatre

Loft Theatre Company
‏@lofttheatre Hugh Jackman starred in the Broadway premiere of The River in 2014. Greg Cole brings the play to the Loft on 19 January.

11:45 AM - 6 Jan 2016

Hugh has always stated his preference for new material. His participation in such projects ( on the glittering stages of Broadway ) does help popularize hitherto unknown but brilliant material in less cosmopolitan areas.

I wonder when the USA regional or community theatre groups will start re-staging THE RIVER in their own communities?

Jo

[mamaleh]

Cush Jumbo is costarring in this summer's free Shakespeare in the Park in NYC in an all-female version of THE TAMING OF THE SHREW.

www.broadwayworld.com/article/Cush-Jumbo-Janet-McTeer-to-Lead-All-Female-THE-TAMING-OF-THE-SHREW-as-Part-of-2016-Shakespeare-in-the-Park-Full-Lineup-Set-20160128

Ellen

[jo]

Talking about Cush -- I was channel-surfing and came upon an episode of THE GOOD WIFE ( maybe it is from the past season?). I don't watch the show, but isn't that Cush in the TV show? I missed her English accent, though.

Jo

[njr]

Jan 28, 2016 18:33:30 GMT -5 jo said:

Talking about Cush -- I was channel-surfing and came upon an episode of THE GOOD WIFE ( maybe it is from the past season?). I don't watch the show, but isn't that Cush in the TV show? I missed her English accent, though.

Jo

Yes. www.imdb.com/name/nm2685264/?ref_=nv_sr_1

Nancy

[jo]

Did we ever see this photo of the event celebrating their donation to BCEFA --




And here's the Facebook Page entry --

"After 115 performances, the acclaimed production of Jez Butterworth's The River on Broadway directed by Ian Rickson and starring the remarkable Hugh Jackman closes on Sunday at Circle in the Square Theatre. Of those total performances, Hugh was joined on stage by four incredible women - Laura Donnelly, Cush Jumbo, Jessica Love and Kerry Warren - in raising $1,045,990 over 48 of them, from November 18-December 27! Hats off to stage managers Michael J. Passaro, Pat Sosnow, company manager Heidi Neven, star dresser Geoffrey Polischuk, the crew and front of house staff for their generous support and the cheerful extra efforts making it all possible. A special salute to Irving Milgrom, Lauren Klein and Brian Rao for making sure all backstage gears were turning well and safely, and to Sonia Friedman and The River producers, Paul Libin and all at Circle for making us welcome.

"Every show's participation in Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS' fundraising campaigns is a unique team effort that is deeply appreciated. This season our friends at The River set the bar across Broadway.

"Thank you, Hugh for leading your team with such generosity of spirit and commitment to the delight of your audiences. The money you have raised is being put to work in ways you can be proud of."

Source: BC/EFA/Facebook

[jo]

Lol! I did get two posters --

*One is the signed poster for the coffers of BCEFA

*But I also wanted the one with Hugh featured prominently on the poster. I got one and requested Hugh to sign it ( and after telling him that I already have the signed BCEFA poster). He signed it and grinned : "Don't tell them " )

Jo

[jo]

I don't remember reading this critic review from HUFFINGTON POST --

Hugh Jackman in The River. Photo: Richard Termine In the second scene of Jez Butterworth's The River (enjoying over-packed houses at Circle in the Square), a character called "The Man"--played by Hugh Jackman, mind you--takes a three-pound silvery wild sea trout; slices it open; reaches in and viscerally pull out the guts, which he drops in a slop pail; washes it at a running faucet, up against the front row of seats; expertly chops a fistful of shallots and another of onions; cuts pockets in his trout, to stuff with onion wedges; and places the thing in the (make-believe) stage oven. Minutes later, out comes Mr. Fish; Mr. Jackman and actress Cush Jumbo stick in their forks, take two bites, pronounce it delicious, and forget about it. That pretty much describes the evening, which is so thoroughly sold out that nothing any of us drama critics say will matter in the least. All that busy work, and Hugh does look impressive in the kitchen; but Butterworth's eighty-five minute play doesn't make for a tasty meal.

The Man is at the family cabin on the cliffs, above the river, presumably in England. (The script has been at least slightly Americanized; one of the characters uses a yellow gummy bear for fish bait, instead of a pickled-onion Monster Munch. Which is some sort of a corn snack, methinks.) He has brought his date (called "The Woman") to fish in the moonlight, telling her he really loves her like he's loved no one else. And telling her he's never brought a woman there before. Fish stories? He then takes a long sharp knife--long before he guts the trout--and cuts into her hand to remove a splinter. Trust me! he implores. To tell you the plot of this mysterious ghost play--anything more than that Man brings Woman to the cabin and they eat two bites of trout--or to even discuss the dramatis personae, is to give away the author's twists and turns of the evening.

Although in this case, I wonder if the main secret is that Mr. Butterworth hasn't quite figured out what the main secret is. (The author has layered on some masterful language, though; a speech two-thirds of the way through, about how The Man discovered fishing when he was seven, is altogether ravishing.) The River--being Butterworth's first play since the 2008 Jerusalem, which Mark Rylance played to great acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic--was a hot ticket at the 93-seat Jerwood Theatre Upstairs at the Royal Court. Ian Rickson's production appears to have been carefully replicated here, although playing to 696 seats. The rustic cabin set, by Ultz, is perfectly eerie; the lighting design by Charles Balfour captures the mysterious mood, as does the music by Stephen Warbeck and Ian Dickinson's sound design. Laura Donnelly--as "The Other Woman," per the Playbill--recreates her role, although the rest of the cast is new. Hugh Jackman and Cush Jumbo in The River.

One is impressed and admiring of Jackman's choice of "The River" instead of something less challenging and more obviously commercial. It is a given, at this point in time, that the star will attract sellout audiences to any stage appearance and that most any producer in town will eagerly devise a project to suit his availability. A small-scale, esoteric intellectual play--which will bring him far less remuneration than his 2011 extravaganza Hugh Jackman: Back on Broadway--is not what you would expect. The star makes The River an occasion, certainly, and it is most unlikely that anyone would have considered bringing the play to Broadway if Jackman hadn't raised his hand and asked to play the role.

One is left wondering, though, whether this atmospheric mystery might not have been more effective at the Royal Court. Not only because of the smaller space and less-than-100 patrons, but because of the lead performance. Dominic West--whom American audiences are watching just now as the star of the new Showtime series, The Affair--is one of those actors whose demeanor suggests something hidden and tortured, deep inside. Cloak the character of The Man in The River with this sense of unease, and Butterworth's play might seem more mysterious, haunted and chilling. Chilling is perhaps what most doesn't come across at Circle in the Square. Jackman is one of today's most celebrated performers, who can do just about anything from Wolverine to Oklahoma!; he positively exudes talent. But as The Man in The River, he is neither chilling nor seemingly dangerous. Just a nice, charismatic bloke cooking the fish. . The River, a play by Jez Butterworth, opened November 16, 2014 and continues through January 25, 2015 at the Circle in the Square


Huffington Post 2014-11-17

The play was not meant to be sinister, as the critic here seems to want it to be. It is an exploration of how a man is enigmatically wrestling with how to find love that he can equate to the thrilling experience when he was 7. That he goes from one feminine companion to another is a testament to his continuing search but never finding that moment of recognition. It happens. That, to me, is what this play demonstrates so effectively. The audience was rapt ( except for occasional peals of laughter) and engrossed, perhaps, themselves reliving a similar experience and longing. The play is perhaps a play of reflection, just like looking at the waters of the river wandering by that cabin in the woods. Just like people looking for something that eludes them, but points them to moments of introspection.

[jo]

While looking for something else, I came across this blog review once again --

11/17/2014


Hugh Jackman Goes Fishing for Love in ‘The River’ on Broadway: REVIEW


BY NAVEEN KUMAR

Watching a fisherman means a lot of waiting around for something to happen. If that fisherman happened to be a strapping, Tony Award-winning movie star like Hugh Jackman, you may be very pleased to do just that. Sitting perched around director Ian Rickson’s intimate production of The River, a poetic but uneventful new play by Jez Butterworth (2011's acclaimed Jerusalem) that opened at Circle in the Square last night, feels a lot like looking at the surface of a stream, knowing the best bits are underneath, just out of reach.

To be fair, events do actually take place in The River, but mostly offstage, outside the confines of this remote, rustic cabin (from the actors’ mix of Australian, Irish and British accents, where exactly is unclear), or at another time the audience doesn’t see. The Man, as Jackman’s character is called in the program, has made a habit of bringing his lovers here to share with them his ultimate true love: fly fishing.

Over the course of the drama’s 90 minutes, we witness two such women (played by Cush Jumbo and Laura Donnelly) making this pilgrimage (at different times, of course), their scenes interspersed though their storylines follow the same path. How many women there have been, when they came or which came first remain open questions. We do know that the same tends to happen with each (a moonless, nocturnal trip to the water, fumbling first declarations of love) and that his conversations with them are substantively the same (history repeating, uncannily and with subtly sinister undertones).

There is, naturally, much passionate talk about fishing, much of it made to sound very compelling, thanks to a vivid and sensitive performance by Mr. Jackman. If your mind paints pretty pictures, Butterworth’s language has no shortage of superfluous color and detail. The Man’s passion, though, so clearly coursing through his aquatic oratories, is curiously (and conspicuously) absent in his relationships with both women.

Much like the play’s fishing, intimate moments between its characters don’t happen on stage; rather, they are referred to and described in the past tense (“Yesterday in this room after we made love”). Onstage, the pairs hardly touch. (He's an island!) Were their desire electric, this could well be hotter than any show of physical affection, but it isn’t. This can hardly be blamed on the production’s comely actors; both Ms. Jumbo and Ms. Donnelly are fine performers.


If the simplest of the play’s many conceits is (spoiler alert!) the women are the fish—migrating past as the man tries to connect with them—watching as they slip through his fingers is actually less exciting than the rush he describes of hooking and then losing hold of a wild trout.

Those last lines add another intriguing interpretation to the play.

That the women are the fish that slip through his fingers...while he is looking for that one fish which electrified his being when he was young.

That the cabin is the river...where he seeks to find "that" fish once again...or something equally fascinating. That the cabin represented the river of life (where we encounter different people as we search for that one true love). It is not the waters surrounding the river that provokes the title, but the place in life where one has different human encounters in search of the true one. That the river is the metaphor to represent life itself!

Hmmm...


Jo

[jo]

www.standard.co.uk/showbiz/celebrity-news/cush-jumbo-the-good-wife-is-the-most-diverse-show-ive-worked-on-a3185901.html

It’s one of the reasons she’s staying put in New York, renting an apartment in Brooklyn with her husband Sean Griffin, who works in digital media.

The couple married on a Broadway stage in 2014 — after she had performed in a matinee performance of Jez Butterworth’s The River — with co-star Hugh Jackman acting as their witness...

So, the bridal toast shown on a photo during the run of the show was for Cush and her new husband!


Jo

[ruby]

Feb 22, 2016 9:29:06 GMT -5 jo said:

www.standard.co.uk/showbiz/celebrity-news/cush-jumbo-the-good-wife-is-the-most-diverse-show-ive-worked-on-a3185901.html

It’s one of the reasons she’s staying put in New York, renting an apartment in Brooklyn with her husband Sean Griffin, who works in digital media.

The couple married on a Broadway stage in 2014 — after she had performed in a matinee performance of Jez Butterworth’s The River — with co-star Hugh Jackman acting as their witness...

So, the bridal toast shown on a photo during the run of the show was for Cush and her new husband!


Jo

It was a double wedding.

[jo]

www.broadway.com/shows/river/photos/photos-celebrate-a-thrilling-opening-night-with-hugh-jackman-the-cast-of-the-river/205570/cush-jumbo-sean-griffin

The River's Cush Jumbo takes a sweet snapshot with new fiancee Sean Griffin, who proposed on opening night.

[jo]

This article from The Associated Press from 2014 slipped into online view via The Wisconsin Gazette --

wisconsingazette.com/2014/12/11/hugh-jackman-talks-fish-blood-and-his-new-show/

Hugh Jackman talks fish, blood and his new show

Entertainment, Stage/December 11, 2014/by MARK KENNEDY, AP Drama Writer/


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]

The Canberra Times reports on the staging of THE RIVER presumably in Australia --

www.canberratimes.com.au/entertainment/theatre/river-of-dreams-ngaire-dawn-fair-on-the-enigma-of-jez-butterworths-the-river-at-red-stitch-20160425-goec6d.html

[jo]

I've not seen this one

[jo]

Did you manage to concentrate on the play if you had riverbank seats next to where he lay


Jo

[jo]

I didn't realize there were two variations of this iconic pose from THE RIVER --

[jo]

A feature on a community theatre in Cape Cod --

www.americantheatre.org/2016/07/29/honesty-vs-community-in-harbor-stages-the-kritik/

What’s your third play this summer?

The River by Jez Butterworth. Somehow we got the rights and they’re letting us do it.


Maybe because, though it had Hugh Jackman and Cush Jumbo when it played on Broadway, it wasn’t super well-received.

I did not expect it to be so good. I think it was a little too meta for New York. But it’s very beautiful, like a poem.

Maybe the watery and almost isolated atmosphere by the Cape added the almost otherworldly appeal of the play, hence a better appreciation of Butterworth's work?

Jo

[jo]

Hugh Jackman ‏@realhughjackman · 45m45 minutes ago

First catch of the day! #dinner

Look who has responded to Hugh's new fish tale

Pasek and Paul ‏@pasekandpaul · 38m38 minutes ago

@realhughjackman looks like a prequel scene from THE RIVER!

Our musical composers for the Greatest FisherMAN on Earth


Jo

[mamaleh]

Ha! Hours earlier I made a similar remark under that photo on FB. And did anyone notice he's still singing the praises--literally--of trout in his duet with Barbra?: "I know a pretty trout stream/Up above Seattle..."

First thing I thought was: it's gotta be a sea trout.

Ellen

[jo]

LOL - was that what it was ? " A pretty trout stream..." -- I would never have guessed


Jo

[jo]

A coming production --

Josh Henry © ‏@imjoshhenry · 6h6 hours ago  Sandy Springs, GA

Inspired by @realhughjackman's performance, I am producing & acting in this play at @7stagesatl in Sept!
#theriver

[jo]

A review of a community theatre production --

www.wbur.org/artery/2016/08/17/harbor-stage-river-butterworth

Harbor Stage Company, With Its Usual Flair, Reels In Jez Butterworth's 'The River'


August 17, 2016

By Ed Siegel




WELLFLEET, Mass. — There’s something invigorating about watching an excellent resident or repertory company at work — and these days it’s excruciatingly rare. The American Repertory Theater is a repertory theater in name only as productions no longer feature a resident acting company, for better or worse. And there is a “worse.” Companies can choose seasons based on the acting company’s abilities (and lack thereof) or shoehorn actors into parts that they’re not capable of playing.

Fortunately, we still have several good resident companies in New England — Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Actors’ Shakespeare Project in Boston and the Trinity Repertory Company in Providence.

And one of the most exciting is certainly Harbor Stage Company, featuring four actors who broke off from the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater (WHAT) and who, after the firing of Jeff Zinn at WHAT, managed to take over the small harbor stage where WHAT grew up before moving to the larger Route 6 space.

What a job they’ve done with their three-play summer mix of classical adaptations, original work and contemporary plays. Robert Kropf’s adaptation of “Miss Julie,” which opened the harbor season, will be coming to the Modern Theatre Sept. 15-25. But before that, their latest, Jez Butterworth’s one-act, “The River,” is haunting the Wellfleet harborside through Sept. 3.



Butterworth is a hot British playwright who has written “Mojo” and “Jerusalem.” (Won't somebody do that in Boston.) He also has the movies "Spectre" and “Black Mass” to his credit, if that’s the word. “The River” is a less adrenaline-filled ride than Butterworth’s other work, recalling the psychological menace of Harold Pinter and the ghostly-tinged creepiness of Conor McPherson (“The Weir”). And if the writing isn’t quite as poetic as Pinter’s and McPherson’s it’s closer than most contemporary plays are to that Anglo-Irish gold standard.

As the play opens, Kropf is entertaining his lover (played by Withers) in a small cabin which, like him, is both grizzled and romantic. He seems to be a fisherman-poet, a soulful DIY guy (I wish I could fillet a fish like he can) and Withers is his perfect soulmate. Until she walks out the door and — at this point you might want to stop reading if you're planning on seeing the production.


When Withers walks out, in walks Stacy Fischer as another woman.

He’s had other “perfect” soulmates before. Is he a Bluebeard serial collector? Or a serial liar-lover? Or something more mysterious and less definable? A stand-in for a more modern spiritual malfunction or inability to make connection?

The women, too, play roles, and say things that make you question their honesty. Withers at one point lets him be the “teacher,” even though she might know as much as he does. Fischer boasts of her flirtation and possibly more while she was walking along the river, leaving him frantic that she might have drowned.

The three actors, who capture the mood wonderfully, helped found the theater along with Jonathan Fielding, the director of this production. The two couples (Fischer and Kropf are partners, as are Withers and Fielding), along with set designer Sara C. Walsh, lighting designer John R. Malinowski and technical director Evan Farley are masters of their craft, producing atmospherically dense work that isn’t afraid to embrace complex rhythms and existential questions. I wish their whole season were replicated in Boston, including Withers’ intriguing-sounding play, “The Kritic.”



Now it wouldn’t have been terrible to see the star of the New York production in the role of the man — Hugh Jackman. The point is that the four actors — Fielding is also a fine thespian — have built up such a level of trust that you want to see them bring their own insight and artistry to these malleable roles, much as Will LeBow and Karen MacDonald did in the Brustein-Woodruff A.R.T. days.


You don’t know quite what to make of Kropf’s damaged soul, and that’s a good thing. Is he merely gasping for air, desperate to stay alive, like the fish who escaped back to the river? Is he luring these women in the way a fisher lures fish, only to snuff out their lives? Or is it all just a cosmic game, though one that doesn’t seem to give him much satisfaction?

Withers really has a thing for these charismatic British daughters of Virginia Woolf — she’s even reading “To the Lighthouse” here — but she was equally luminous in Stoppard a couple of years ago. And Fischer takes over all her characters, whether naively femme or dangerously fatale. You’re not sure till the end, if then, which she is in “The River.”

You’re not sure of much by the end, except that you’ve seen a group of first-rate artists confront a challenging work and left us all the better for it.

[jo]

From the above featured article, a review from Jeremy Gerrard of Deadline of Hugh's Broadway staging of THE RIVER --



Hey, he likes The River better than A Steady Rain? Hmm...not too sure about that! They each present a different side to Hugh's acting chops -- in The River he is a man who is looking for something elusive and is not very self-assured. In A Steady Rain, his character is all self-assurance at the beginning who eventually succumbs to life's many pitfalls - very cocky at the start turning somber and defeated at the end.

On a side note, Jeremy Gerrard was part of a recent organizational downsizing at Deadline - no more separate theatre critic.

Jo