The River - Reviews

[haterobics]

Posted: 11/16/14 at 6:46pm

Not sure where Limelight Mike is, but they are starting to appear online...

Financial Times - negative
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ec544b46-6bea-11e4-b939-00144feabdc0.html

"... the move to a larger space – Circle in the Square has seven times as many seats as the Royal Court – has drained away intimacy and tension. Gone missing: much of what is necessary to make this 85-minute production as taut as Butterworth’s skilful text requires."

[teresa2]

Posted: 11/16/14 at 7:18pm

Can you post the review? I cant read it unless I subscribe to the financial times, which I have no interest in. I would appreciate it. Thanks.

[kade.ivy]

Posted: 11/16/14 at 7:45pm

TimeOut NY - Positive

http://www.timeout.com/newyork/theater/the-river

[mc1227]

Posted: 11/16/14 at 7:58pm

David Kunt is a pompous ass. Oh excuse me, Cote.

[haterobics]

Posted: 11/16/14 at 8:10pm

Financial Times:

When Jez Butterworth’s The River premiered two years ago at the Royal Court’s Theatre Upstairs in London, it quickly became a hot ticket. In its new Broadway incarnation, directed again by Ian Rickson, the play is still highly popular, thanks to its star, Hugh Jackman, but the move to a larger space – Circle in the Square has seven times as many seats as the Royal Court – has drained away intimacy and tension. Gone missing: much of what is necessary to make this 85-minute production as taut as Butterworth’s skilful text requires.

The playwright is known in New York primarily for the rollicking 2011 staging of Jerusalem starring Mark Rylance. This time, however, we are back to Pinter-inflected Jez. The River exists in a claustrophobic world, devoid of external references except to the likes of Ted Hughes and Virginia Woolf.

Butterworth’s literariness can grow thick: The Man, who is Jackman’s character, launches into a speech about landing his first fish – angling is a primary subject in this essentially plotless piece – in which the rhythms out-Yeats Yeats. The Man was brought to a remote cabin, the drama’s setting, as a boy, and he returns regularly to catch sea trout. At first he plays host to The Woman – portrayed by the commanding Cush Jumbo – but as the story progresses she begins to change places with The Other Woman: the fetching Laura Donnelly, who also did the role in London.

Broadway audiences would gladly drink in the enormously appealing Jackman the song-and-dance man in perpetuity, just as movie-goers keep flocking to his Wolverine. To his credit, he wants to explore other worlds. But he has not found a way to convey effectively The Man’s frustration at not finding the all-enveloping love he professes to cherish. Watching him towards the end of The River, when the pain of reality sets in, I kept wishing I were glimpsing his face in close-up: the anguish would have been much clearer. The too-capacious venue is more ocean than river, and the emotional impact suffers.

2 out of 5 stars.

[NewYorkTheater]

Posted: 11/16/14 at 8:11pm

They’ve asked us not to reveal the ending of “The River,” a play by Jez Butterworth (author of “Jerusalem”) starring Hugh Jackman as a man who likes to fish. But I’m not sure what difference knowing the ending would make, since it’s only slightly less enigmatic than the beginning or the middle of this play.
The River Review: Hugh Jackman, Two Women, and a Sea Trout

[haterobics]

Posted: 11/16/14 at 8:13pm

Variety is negative

http://variety.com/2014/legit/reviews/the-river-review-hugh-jackman-broadway-1201357833/

"Aside from the charismatic star’s intense performance as a lovesick fisherman who is given to poetic laments over the fish (and the woman) who slipped away from him, just about everything else about Jez Butterworth’s strange chamber piece, “The River,” is a downer."

[NewYorkTheater]

Posted: 11/16/14 at 8:19pm

AP is negative
Butterworth's 90-minute play, which made its debut in London in 2012, has rightly been compared to a silvery, shimmering fish, twisting and turning just out of reach.
AP review of The River

[Sutton Ross]

Posted: 11/16/14 at 8:37pm

SHOCKING

[teresa2]

Posted: 11/16/14 at 8:39pm

Thank you for posting it.

[haterobics]

Posted: 11/16/14 at 8:40pm

ABC News seems mixed (to negative?):

"The River" is a whisper of a play, a lovely little look at the one that got away. Pity we spend so much time watching the gutting of the one that didn't.

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/review-hugh-jackman-stars-wistful-river-26957721

[haterobics]

Posted: 11/16/14 at 8:50pm

Talkin' Broadway is mixed:

"Sometimes the most intriguing mystery is revealed in a place where there’s no mystery at all. This is certainly the case with The River... Jez Butterworth’s 2012 play... is powered by a premise that’s provocative primarily because each of the three characters onstage refuses to mention it. And that would be the most newsworthy part of this play that needs no outside help if not for the smaller matter of casting its central role with one of the most unexpected of actors: Hugh Jackman."

http://www.talkinbroadway.com/world/TheRiver2014.html

[haterobics]

Posted: 11/16/14 at 9:03pm

Hollywood Reporter is mixed:

"Despite the considerable charisma and commitment of its outsize star, Hugh Jackman, this new work is a sliver of a mood piece that never tightens its grip."

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/river-theater-review-749495

[haterobics]

Posted: 11/16/14 at 9:09pm

a.m. NY is negative

"While the 85-minute play does offer interesting observations on relationships, mystery and lyrical language, it has a dearth of action. Although there is a payoff at the end, it is hardly worth the wait."

http://www.amny.com/entertainment/the-river-with-hugh-jackman-is-an-elusive-drama-with-little-mainstream-appeal-1.9623374

Vulture is mixed

"Whether manliness is next to goodliness is a different question, one the play itself — riveting, troubling, thought-provoking, unsatisfying — struggles to embody and never really answers."

http://www.vulture.com/2014/11/theater-review-the-river.html?mid=googlenews

NY Daily News is mixed

"When you think all will be revealed, there are just more questions. The play is like its hero: an endless game of emotional catch-and-release."

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/hugh-jackman-brings-manly-heft-man-river-article-1.2011340

Newsday is mixed:

"The three-character drama is emotionally exposed and intensely inconclusive -- a poetic, lusty puzzle that rivets one moment, exasperates another, and is destined to keep theatergoers arguing about its meaning all the way home, if not all season."

http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/theater/the-river-review-a-powerful-mysterious-hugh-jackman-1.9618375
Updated On: 11/16/14 at 09:09 PM

[haterobics]

Posted: 11/16/14 at 9:16pm

Deadline is mixed:

"Is The Man a cad, a lucky bloke, a sinister force? Damned if I know, or if any of us knows by the end of the one-act’s 90 minutes’ running time."

http://deadline.com/2014/11/the-river-review-hugh-jackman-broadway-1201285906/

[haterobics]

Posted: 11/16/14 at 9:38pm

Entertainment Weekly is positive: B+

"The play definitely makes you work, but if you're willing to paddle through the murky water, one thing becomes clear: The River's wild."

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20364394_20873122,00.html

[haterobics]

Posted: 11/16/14 at 10:41pm

Lord Brantley seems to go mixed to positive? (he warned of getting too spoilery in the middle, so I stopped reading):

"This artfully staged production, set in a rural fishing cabin that is one man’s insular kingdom, is guaranteed to hold your attention. But you’re likely to leave it feeling hungry, and not just because it aims to mystify. Be grateful, then, that any pangs of emptiness are counterbalanced by the intriguing heft of Mr. Jackman’s strangely radiant opacity."

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/17/theater/hugh-jackman-stars-in-the-river-on-broadway.html?ref=arts&_r=0

[Play Esq.]

Posted: 11/16/14 at 10:50pm

Reads verv positive Jackman. Eh everything else.

[Sutton Ross]

Posted: 11/16/14 at 11:01pm

Yeah, it wouldn't have made it to Broadway if it didn't have one of the biggest stars in the world in it. It's utter sh+t

Updated On: 11/17/14 at 11:01 PM

[Sutton Ross]

Posted: 11/16/14 at 11:01pm

Updated On: 11/16/14 at 11:01 PM

[Jeffrey Karasarides]

Posted: 11/16/14 at 11:01pm

So does anyone see this getting nominations come awards season or is it going to be forgotten completely?

[Play Esq.]

Posted: 11/16/14 at 11:09pm

After seeing the remarkable Disgraced today, it sounds like the River doesn't hold a chance for the best play race. Sadly, the hallmark card that is Curious Incident will likely win.

Here's hoping for The Audience and Wolf Hall to split the Brit vote!

[NewYorkTheater]

Posted: 11/16/14 at 11:21pm

"strangely radiant opacity."
"The River's wild"

What do these things mean?

[JBroadway]

Posted: 11/17/14 at 12:23am

NY Times reads Positive to me. I might be wrong, but having read the whole review, it seems to me like Mr. Brantley liked it.

[mamaleh]

Posted: 11/17/14 at 9:36am

That's the money review, all right.