The River review – slippery Jez Butterworth play remains a headscratcher

Sydney Theatre CompanyMiranda Otto, Ewen Leslie and Andrea Demetriades are all pleasant to watch but this decade-old play is sometimes obnoxiously mysterious Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email The River, written by the British playwright Jez Butterworth (Jerusalem, Ford v Ferrari), is a 2012 play that ushers us into the world of The Man (Ewen Leslie). He is so absorbed in his trout-fishing hobby that he won’t stop to watch a sunset with The Woman (Miranda Otto, returning to the Sydney Theatre Company stage after 15 years), even though he has romantically brought her to his remote cabin for the first time. The new couple are figuring each other out: flirting, testing, learning how to navigate disagreements and each other’s quirks before our eyes. It’s tense, intimate and insistently – sometimes obnoxiously – mysterious. Because the woman goes missing. And then we’re back in the cabin with the man and – it turns out – The Other Woman (Andrea Demetriades), who is visiting the cabin for the first time, cajoled into trout fishing, trading secrets and flirting … Anna Tregloan’s spare set – the cabin is only a wooden frame – and Damien Cooper’s shifting,