This is a play that talks a lot about fishing. I learnt what a ‘priest’ is (a tool for quickly killing fish) and the fact that there is little difference between a trout and a sea trout. As the title suggests, it is set in a cottage by a river, where ‘The Man’, played by Charlie Tyler, enjoys his lifelong obsession. But fish are not the only prey he captures for sport, we realise as the play unfolds. This is also a play about relationships, love and lies and the complexity of being human against the simplicity of the natural world.
Jez Butterworth wrote this after his hugely successful hit, Jerusalem with Mark Rylance in 2009. The River was first performed at the Royal Court Theatre, an intimate space so it is therefore fitting for it to now be shown at the Burton Taylor studio, a 50 seat theatre. This is a student production, and for 8 weeks per term, the BT is used purely for student shows, both newly student-written as well as classic plays.
The play opens with a girl’s voice singing offstage, then ‘The Woman’, played by Megan Thresh enters, carries on singing to herself and pours herself some wine. The kitchen is simple, the basic requirements of a man who lives alone. There was a nice design touch with two paintings suspended from a lighting bar at the back which gave the set depth and sense of place. Elements like this which require thought and a keen eye are so much more important than a big budget. The man and the woman, who are obviously lovers, talk (mainly about fishing!) and leave the stage together, then the man returns almost immediately, alone and in a panic. This all happened too quickly, not giving the audience time to imagine what was taking place offstage, and especially as the woman who enters next, is ‘The Other Woman’, played by Ella Jackson.
It would be easy to believe that the two actresses were playing different aspects of the same woman (especially as there was no programme, so I only knew the character’s ‘names’ from pre reading about the play and asking the director, Tallulah Vaughan, for the names of the cast), but this was definitely not the case, and indeed it is a crucial aspect of the play that there is more than one woman.
This is a difficult play to perform. It relies on strategic pauses and an air of mystery and unease. It needs time, like a bottle of red wine, to breathe and mature. It is meant to run for 80 minutes with no interval, but this performance lasted 70 minutes. However, the audience, who were mainly students, were rapt and attentive and there were some very good moments. ★★★☆☆ Karin André 20th October 2016
