Hugh Jackman will star opposite British actresses Laura Donnelly and Cush Jumbo when the Royal Court production of Jez Butterworth’s The River debuts on Broadway in October.
The X-Men star, and host of this year’s Tony Awards, will play the role taken in the world premiere by Dominic West, of a man who takes a woman to a remote cabin on a moonless night.
For Olivier Award nominee Jumbo, The River, which is directed by Ian Rickson, marks her return to the New York stage where she previously appeared in the transfer of the Donmar Warehouse’s acclaimed all-female production of Julius Caesar. She replaces Miranda Raison, who appeared in the original production.
Donnelly is the sole survivor from the London production to transfer to New York. The Irish actress boasts London credits including Philadelphia, Here I Come at the Donmar and Judgment Day at the Almeida Theatre. Later this year she will play Emma O’Reilly in the Stephen Frears-directed Lance Armstrong film that stars Ben Foster, soon to be seen at London’s Young Vic in A Streetcar Named Desire, as the disgraced US cyclist.
The River, the sixth collaboration between Butterworth and Rickson, was described by The Telegraph’s Charles Spencer on its London opening as: “teasing, haunting and hushed. It is also damnably difficult to write about, as there is a mystery at its heart that I must not reveal.”