SITE GUIDE
SEARCH
REVIEWS
REVIEW ARCHIVES
ADVERTISING AT CURTAINUP
FEATURES
NEWS
Etcetera and
Short Term Listings
LISTINGS
Broadway
Off-Broadway
NYC Restaurants
BOOKS and CDs
OTHER PLACES
Berkshires
London
California
New Jersey
DC
Connecticut
Philadelphia
Elsewhere
QUOTES
TKTS
PLAYWRIGHTS' ALBUMS
LETTERS TO EDITOR
FILM
LINKS
MISCELLANEOUS
Free Updates
Masthead
Writing for Us
A CurtainUp 
London Review
London ReviewThe River
|
It wasn’t because I’d lost my fish. It was because I had seen something I never knew was there. A force. A spirit.
— the Man
|
Miranda Raison as the Woman and Dominic West as the Man (Photo: John Haynes) |
As the woman goes into another room at the rear of the stage, onto the set seamlessly comes the Other Woman (Laura Donnelly). When one woman leaves, the other seems to carry on as The Man dances the metaphorical dance, casts his line for a symbolic fish, repeating what he has enacted with a previous woman. It suddenly becomes apparent that we may be watching a tale of serial sex and fly fishing.
Like Jerusalem, The River is directed by Ian Rickson who knows how to build suspense in a very subtle way. Dominic West gives a restrained, elliptical and brooding performance, full of masculine ambiguity with no easy answers. Miranda Raison’s Woman is quite prickly and assertive as she probes for explanation of who went before but Laura Donnelly’s Other Woman is less overtly questioning and more pleasure seeking. The early scene between West and Raison illustrates the tension in the relationship as she wants him to look at the sunset with her and he wants her to go fishing with him for sea trout at night. She demands that he describe the sunset and he responds almost ironically with a lush description of, “trails of apricot, feathering out through blue, dark blue and aquamarine to an iris ring of obsidian . . .” It reaches a low point when he asks her to read a poem about fishing which she derides.
Another veteran of Jerusalem, designer Ultz gives us a wonderfully detailed and realistic room on the ground floor of the isolated cabin. As both women outcast and outfish the Man, we see him cooking onstage a magnificent sea trout specimen caught by her. I was impressed with his culinary skills as he cuts up fennel to accompany the trout.
This atmospheric piece through an ostensibly simple story makes us examine who we are and how we behave and evolve. I suspect you could see it again and again and each time notice something different, something that hadn’t struck you on first seeing. It is better than a ghost story because The River is about the ethereal within us all.
|
Subscribe to our FREE email updates with a note from editor Elyse Sommer about additions to the website -- with main page hot links to the latest features posted at our numerous locations. To subscribe,
E-mail: esommer@curtainup.comesommer@curtainup.com
put SUBSCRIBE CURTAINUP EMAIL UPDATE in the subject line and your full name and email address in the body of the message -- if you can spare a minute, tell us how you came to CurtainUp and from what part of the country. |
| The River
Written by Jez Butterworth Directed by Ian Rickson Starring: Dominic West, Miranda Raison, Laura Donnelly Designed by Ultz Lighting: Charles Balfour Sound: Ian Dickinson Composer: Stephen Warbeck Running time: One hour 20 minutes without an interval Box Office: 020 7565 5000 Booking to 17th November 2012 with tickets released on the day at 9am Reviewed by Lizzie Loveridge based on 26th October 2012 at the Jerwood Theatre Upstairs at the Royal Court Sloane Square London SW1W 8AS (Tube: Sloane Square) |
|
REVIEW FEEDBACK Highlight one of the responses below and click "copy" or"CTRL+C"
Paste the highlighted text into the subject line (CTRL+ V): Feel free to add detailed comments in the body of the email . . . also the names and emails of any friends to whom you'd like us to forward a copy of this review. |
