Review: Spooky Action's Plunge into THE RIVER

The theater space at the Spooky Action Theatre is so intimate you immediately feel you're in the tiny cabin where all its action in Jez Butterworth's play The River takes place.

Not only do you watch the man rhapsodize about sea trout fly fishing on a moonless night from this old, remote family-owned cabin, and witness the interaction with a woman he's invited there, you also get to watch him cut, filet, season and cook a fish, its smells filling up the space.

But things aren't quite so simple in the work where the man's gets romantic about his manly pursuits and his smart companion is onto his schtick, doesn't particularly want to read a poem from a TEd Hughes book also called River, and senses he's brought other women to this very cabin before her. And sure enough, in Butterworth's elliptical work, a different woman walks in to take up the conversation where the other left off.

For some, there may be a sense of menace to all of this. He's playing wth knives, after all, and is opaque about his intent, though he tells each of the women he loves her and refers to W.B. Yeats' poem "The Song of the Wandering Angus," conveniently reprinted in the program. What kind of ritual is he involved in? "Trust me," he intones.

Director Rebecca Holderness doesn't venture a guess in her taut production, though the program for the production shows a woman plunging underwater (though it looks of concern, there is a passage where a woman talks enthusiastically about plunging naked into a pool on her own volition).

Butterworth, whose 2009 Tony-nominated play Jerusalem won a Tony for Mark Ryland, is inspired somewhat by Irish lore here, and in capturing that visceral moment of electricity that jolts one out of everyday existence - as when an unseen creature bites the line.

The River played Broadway in a celebrated production starring Hugh Jackman in 2014; it premiered two years earlier in London with Dominic West, now of The Affair. Like those men, veteran actor Jeffrey Allen exudes a similar kind of stoic manliness. Emma Jackson and Karen Novack set off frisky, intelligent sparks as his female companions with very similar costumes (by Erik Teague) if not fates.

Confined without intermission in Vicki R. Davis' marvelous cabin, appointed by Elizabeth Long (with lighting by Matthew E. Adelson and sound by Gordon Nimmo-Smith that is marked by big winds), it's a vexing little spell that's created.

And though the company name Spooky Action refers to an Einstein principle, it's fitting here too simply in indicating eeriness.

Running time: 90 minutes, no intermission.

Photo credit: Jeffrey Allin and Emma Jackson in Spooky Action Theater's 'The River.' Photo by Tony Hitchcock.

The River plays through Feb. 26 at Spooky Action Theater, 1810 16th St NW. 202-248-0301 or online.

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