The River is onstage at Sydney Opera House now. Take a deeper dive into this deeply mysterious and lyrical play with the synopsis below.

On a crisp night in a remote cabin perched above a winding river, a man waits for a woman he’s invited to share a weekend of fishing, cooking and quiet escape. The place is rugged and intimate – a refuge filled with the smell of woodsmoke, the memory of past seasons, and the sound of water moving endlessly beyond the windows.

He talks about the landscape the way some people talk about destiny: with reverence, with certainty, with an unshakable sense that the things we chase in life are somehow being drawn toward us in return. She listens, intrigued by both him and this mysterious patch of wilderness he so clearly loves.

But as the night deepens, the cabin becomes a place where time doesn’t behave quite as expected. Stories echo, moments repeat, and the familiar lines between truth and tale start to blur. The couple navigate conversations about trust, longing, and the risks we take when we let ourselves be seen – all while something just out of view seems to be shifting.

What follows is part love story, part ghost story, part puzzle. Butterworth invites us into an atmosphere thick with desire and uncertainty, where the natural world feels both comforting and uncanny. This is a story about the people we hold onto, the versions of ourselves we offer them, and the ones that slip quietly away.

In this secluded cabin, nothing is entirely certain – except the pull of the river itself.

Tickets for The River are available now.