Simon McBurney likes to mess with our notions of perception, much of which, he tells us, is influenced by a world of fictions and memories. To that end his show, The Encounter, takes you out of the usual theatrical space and sets up shop, proscenium notwithstanding, in an immersive 3-D auditory world in your head facilitated by something called binaural recording, which requires earphones for successful reproduction. Suitably armed with a battery of microphones and an atmospheric, imaginative sound design by Gareth Fry, he skips nimbly between his work room at home in London, where his late night creativity is constantly interrupted by his young daughter, and the enticingly mysterious Amazonian Rain Forest. At times he brought to mind a stage juggler keeping several plates spinning atop their poles as first one sound track then another and another were introduced to add richness to the sound canvas.
Mr McBurney is a consummate and passionate storyteller who expertly conveys the wonder, excitement and tension of his story. Based on the account of the explorer, Loren McIntyre as related in the book, Amazon Beaming, by Petru Popescu, he uses theatre to take his audience where the book could not go. His jungle is constructed aurally in the audience’s heads and is a wonderfully vivid creation which also makes use of clever design, lighting and projection.
Finding himself lost in the Amazonian rainforest whilst searching for the furthest source of the Amazon, McIntyre is ‘captured’ by the Mayoruna tribe, ‘the cat people’, whose only previous contact with white people was to their thinking an ill blessing. Immersing himself in the culture of the people for the duration of his encounter, Loren takes part in various drug induced, shamanistic rituals which allow him to supposedly communicate telepathically with the tribal elder and also lead to meditations on the relationship of the indigenous people to the forest and the relationship of the ‘civilised’ world to both.
Swapping between his own and the character of McIntyre, McBurney draws us into the alien worlds of the Amazonian forest and McIntyre’s disorientated mind. At the climax of the play a kind of metaphysical battle takes place between McIntyre and the tribal shaman, resulting in a frenzy of destruction as McBurney rushes around smashing everything in sight, including his on-stage table.
The play is a considerable creative achievement which brings storytelling enthrallingly up to date. ★★★★☆ Graham Wyles at the Bristol Old Vic on 20th September 2015
