9/10
Jezz Butterworth’s The River demonstrates an acute awareness of the anxieties that plague human relationships, and Tallulah Vaughan’s 2nd week production at the Burton Taylor Studio retains every inch of this. We are invited into a cottage at an unspecified rural location by our similarly unnamed protagonist, a nod to the play’s embrace of universal themes. The protagonist is in the throes of an early romance with a woman he has enticed to his riverside cottage to introduce her to his foremost joy in life: sea trout fishing. However, after a scene change in which we witness a similar interaction with a previous lover we realise that this routine is, indeed, routine for him: and so begins a long series of lies that threaten to undo the parallel relationships we witness during the 80 minutes.
The cast is superb, with palpable energy and chemistry sustained between each of the couples throughout. This is in part aided by the intimacy of the Burton Taylor Studio as a performance space: no body language goes unnoticed by the audience, with each glance and hand placement adding to the intensity of the relationships portrayed. Charlie Tyrer plays the almost psychopathic ‘Man’ with commendable intensity, clearly conveying the complexities of an individual who struggles to approach his love for women with the same commitment as he does his love for fishing. He and Megan Thresh (The Woman) perfectly capture the awkward eager-to-please stages of an new relationship, keen to ‘do things’ for the other – ‘describe this sunset’ ‘read this poem’, and most importantly, come fishing – in attempt to engage with one another’s interests and passions. However, this exposes most clearly the metaphor of fishing for ‘reeling in’ women: just as she discovers she is by no means the first woman brought to the cottage, she reveals that she has been able to fish since childhood, prompting, albeit in a very comical scene, a rage comparable to her own. Thresh’s performance is excellent and very believable, with her tolerance being pushed ever closer to its limit.
Scene changes are handled cleverly and smoothly; the Woman leaves to shower whilst the Man prepares dinner, and the Other Woman (Ella Jackson) returns. This relationship is just as expertly acted, and Jackson brilliantly handles the emotional blow of romantic dishonesty. In the second half the script begins to drift into cliché, and Butterworth is at times too self-consciously literary: a kiss on the neck is like ‘gold shining down my spine into my stomach’ and the Man has ‘no next breath’ without saying ‘I love you’. This threatens to undo the subtlety of the first half, but the play is saved by the exceptionally engaging performances and right amount of ghostly tension that pervades the drama throughout. Overall the play is watertight and not worth missing: mysterious, comical and poignant in all the right doses.
