The River (Sydney Theatre Co) ★★★

Written by Jen Butterworth. Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House. Sydney Theatre Company. 8 Apr – 16 May, 2026.

The River, Jez Butterworth’s creepy cabin-in-the-woods emotional thriller, picks at the ghosts that haunt relationships and the toxic patterns we develop.

The Man (Ewen Leslie) has brought The Woman (Miranda Otto) to his special retreat, his fishing cabin. Their relationship is still fresh and new, they’re eager to impress each other and afraid of missteps. But they’re not alone in this secluded cabin on the eve of a new moon. There are signs of a past woman hidden away. The Woman is not the first to be brought here, and she may not be the last. Why is The Man lying? What lurks behind his passion?

Ewen Leslie guts and cooks a fish on stage. I feel like that should be noted. Whether it was a particularly convincing prop or a genuine, edible fish that Miranda Otto gamely digs into, it’s a level of verisimilitude I was not expecting. There will be (fish) blood.

There is a lot of talk about fish in The River — some of it metaphor, some of it practical, some of it endearingly dull. Fishing is simultaneously the most unsexy thing men do to get some alone time, and revealingly vulnerable as an offering to a new lover. Or is it?

Where is the line between a man letting you into his private world and you simply being forced to watch your boyfriend play Grand Theft Auto for four hours? How often does a woman have to pretend to be bad at something to make her partner feel good? What are you supposed to do when you discover a woman’s dress in the closet and a picture with a scratched-out face locked away in a box?

Girl, you run. You grab your things and run.

The River takes the Celtic myth of Aengus Óg and the W.B. Yeats poem “The Song of Wandering Aengus” and transforms them into a tale of modern dating. The Man is doomed to forever search for “the one that got away”. His attempts to repeat the magic of first love end in disappointment – an existential torture for him and for the women around him. But Butterworth’s use of the mystical (and a whole host of literary references that will make for a nice drinking game for those with English degrees) seeks to add meaningful tragedy to male immaturity that I’m not sure is justified.

The River is an awkward blend of tones that don’t quite gel. Outwardly it presents itself as a mystery-horror – a small cabin in frightening, menacing woods, a “nice guy” with a sharp knife, fragile egos everywhere. Anna Tregloan’s design is beautiful and claustrophobic. Damien Cooper’s lighting punctuates moments with intensity. Like all the best horrors, the tension is laced with humour, in this case like a rom-com of good intentions. You also feel the pull towards deeper themes in the poetic, circular language and scenes that loop and bleed into one another.

Director Margaret Thanos brings the same intellectual coolness that served her so well in A Mirror at Belvoir, but it doesn’t connect here. There is a lack of heat on stage, and with it the heart of the piece disappears. Thanos can’t quite get under The Man’s skin to empathise with his pain. As the scenes start to spiral, what should have drawn us into The Man’s endless plight simply feels like inertia.

Without the sexual chemistry, the excellent cast are left somewhat floundering. Otto and Leslie are both warm and endearing presences, but their relationship is bogged down by the language rather than elevated by it. The wonderful Andrea Demetriades, playing The Other Woman, almost feels drafted in from another play.

At a slight 80 minutes, The River feels like a thought experiment rather than a complete play. Full of literary allusions, eerie portents and lingering pauses, it excels at generating mood but is less successful at holding attention. Like an unusual first date, I found myself analysing why something that looks so good on paper — acclaimed playwright, superb cast, gorgeous staging — just felt a bit off. I shrugged it off on the walk along the Harbour. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I just wasn’t that into him.