Jackman strays from his comfort zone in this weird meditation on love and loss

Jez Butterworth’s elliptical chamber drama is a mystery play in the purest sense: no answers, no closure. As Hugh Jackman (identified only as the Man) interacts with Cush Jumbo (the Woman) and Laura Donnelly (the Other Woman), you may worry over the gals’ well-being: Is Jackman playing a serial womanizer—or something more sinister? Next moment, your heart goes out to the lonely guy, connected more to the stream outside his cabin than his appealing houseguests. Then there’s the fact that the ladies switch places midscene with the Man, making the action seem both continuous and fractured. Crime thriller? Erotic memoir? Ghost story? Yes and no. Wriggling slickly through all these categories, The River is a metaphysical piece, despite visceral business (the Man guts and cooks a trout). The language often grows heightened, with arialike monologues about water, fish, the weather and furious lovemaking (“It was beyond hunger, beyond need—like this giant rolling fiery roaring ball with me in the middle of it”).