Hugh Jackman Returns to Broadway in Jez Butterworth's The River
Hugh Jackman returns to Broadway—along with Cush Jumbo and Laura Donnelly—in a haunting rendering of Jez Butterworth's The River. By Adam Green. Photographed by Annie Leibovitz.
By Adam Green
Photography by Annie Leibovitz
From left: Cush Jumbo, Jackman, and Laura Donnelly. On Jumbo: Michael Kors sweater and Lucky Brand jeans. On Jackman: Rag & Bone knit cap. On Donnelly: Suzannah dress and The Row cardigan.Photographed by Annie Leibovitz, Vogue, November 2014
Every so often, the announcement of an upcoming theater production exerts an effect on me similar to that of a dinner bell on one of Pavlov's dogs. A good example would be Jez Butterworth's play The River, which opens this month at Circle in the Square, though it's hard to pinpoint just which element of this production elicits my response: The return to the boards of the incomparable Hugh Jackman (and the chance to see him in a relatively intimate setting)? The Broadway debut of the brilliant young star-on-the-rise Cush Jumbo? The New York premiere of Butterworth's (and his longtime collaborator, the director Ian Rickson's) first new play since the epic smash Jerusalem? Chalk it up to an alchemical mix of all three.
The quiet 90-minute, three-character play was first produced two years ago in London at the Royal Court's 90-seat upstairs theater, where it played for only four weeks, making it literally the toughest ticket in town. It revolves around a character known only as the Man (Jackman), who has brought a newish girlfriend, the Woman (Jumbo), to his remote rural cabin near a river for the weekend to introduce her to the transcendent joys of night fishing for sea trout. Soon, though, he's making a panicked call to the police to say that she has gone missing, and when she finally shows up, she is someone else entirely—that would be the Other Woman (the terrific Laura Donnelly), who may be an earlier or later lover, a figment of the Man's imagination, or a ghost.
That's about all I can tell you without giving away the play's secrets, except to say that the women continue to change places, sometimes in the middle of a scene—one goes off to take a shower, the other returns toweling her hair—and that its final plot twist raises more questions than it answers. Like all of Butterworth's plays, it's also suffused with poetry—in this case, works by Yeats and Ted Hughes—which help impart its spare, elliptical beauty.
An avid fly-fisherman, Butterworth approaches the sport with an almost spiritual reverence, a view shared by his mysterious protagonist. "The act of fishing takes him to another world, to another dimension," Jackman says of his character. "It's pure and real, which is what he's looking for in his relationships—looking for 'the one.' He's trying to rekindle something that he lost, or that he's never had—a feeling of being truly alive."
Jackman is excited to be returning to the stage, both for the sheer joy of it ("It's a love that's never waned since I was five, doing Camelot at my primary school," he says) and for the chance to do something different: "This play has been described as a piece of chamber music. I've done musicals and a one-man show and massive, bombastic movies, so it's thrilling to be in something so intimate and filled with so many goose-bump moments." A case in point is an extended scene in which Jackman cleans, prepares, and sautés an actual trout. "I love the idea of doing all that, in silence and alone, except I'm onstage in front of 750 people," he says. "I love the power of theater to create a moment like that—though if I cut myself and start bleeding all over the place, it might not be so silent."
As an acting challenge, gutting a fish will be child's play next to having commitment issues with his costar, the radiant Jumbo, a 29-year-old actress of English and Nigerian descent whose fiercely intelligent performances in such productions as the Donmar Warehouse's all-female Julius Caesar and her self-written one-woman show about Josephine Baker (which may be coming to New York soon after The River) radiate something ineffable that can't be learned or bought. She appreciates her character's enigmatic nature, but she knows where she's coming from. "It's such a simple thing, but in Jez's hands it feels very lovely and romantic and dangerous and vulnerable."
The Belfast-born Donnelly, as the Other Woman, is the only member of the original cast coming to New York. She was initially drawn to the play, she says, by the way it "reminded me of certain music—music with darkness and longing to it." But as she rehearsed and played the part, she came to appreciate her character's radical, uncompromising honesty. Despite its luminous, poetic quality, The River also raises unsettling questions about authenticity in relationships and to what extent we can ever know another person. "It had quite a profound effect on me and my personal life," Donnelly says. "It made me look at the way my life was going, and change some things, because I wasn't living in a truthful place."
As Butterworth puts it, "I think it's quite an elegiac piece on the surface—but it was designed to kill."
Hair: Jimmy Paul for Bumble and Bumble; Makeup: Lisa Butler for & Other Stories
Menswear Editor: Michael Philouze
Sittings Editor: Tonne Goodman
Production Design: Mary Howard
TopicsHugh JackmanBroadwayPlay