Review: THE ENCOUNTER - An Innovative Means of Tripping Down a Photographer's Rabbit Hole

THE ENCOUNTER/conceived by Simon McBurney, Kirsty Housley & Jemima Jones/directed by Simon McBurney & Kirsty Housley/Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts/thru April 16, 2017

The West Coast premiere of Complicite's THE ENCOUNTER amazes with its cutting-edge technology of 3-D audio. Co-creator/performer Simon McBurney commands the Wallis stage as he recalls National Geographic photographer Loren McIntyre's 1969 photographic expedition into the depths of the Amazon rainforest. The inventive use of Sennheiser headphones astonishingly brings all the various sound effects and voices into your ears, alternating between left and right, then sometimes both. I caught myself (more than once) turning around to shush the voice behind me, only to realize the overlapping voice was coming from one of my headphones.

The charismatic McBurney begins the evening matter-of-factly addressing the audience from the stage with the houselights on. He gives the pre-show instructions, then beckons all to put on their headphones and the one-man show does begin.

Sound is the agile scene partner of McBurney as he relays McIntyre's frightening incident of getting lost in the Brazilian rainforest, being captured by the Mayoruna tribe, and then experiencing hallucinogenics in captivity. Much kudos to sound designers Gareth Fry with Pete Malkin, and sound engineers Samantha Broomfield, Laura Hammond and Amir Sherhan for the novel technical transmission of McBurney's rapid machine gun delivery of events. At times, the bombardment of sounds can overwhelm, like a sensory overload for your ears; but musical interludes nicely complement the more quiet sections of McIntyre's tales.

Interspersed throughout his passionately intense, highly fraught narrative; interruptions from McIntyre's little daughter (never seen, just voiced) bring welcomed calm and warmth.

Kirsty Housley briskly co-directs (with McBurney) McBurney at a non-stop, constantly moving pace.

With a textured back-wall ripe for lighting effects, projection supervisor Sam Hunt keeps his videos at a minimum, shunning any hint of the rainforest. THE ENCOUNTER's like having a parent read you a bedtime story, very up close and personal, and leaving all the visuals up to your own imagination.

A different breed of theatre, indeed; as an unexpected side-effect of the headphone usage, I felt a unique, isolated experience with McBurney, instead of the typical theatre audience camaraderie of shared laughter, gasps of shock or 'Ah-Ha!' moments of murderers' identities revealed.

THE ENCOUNTER (inspired by Petru Popescu's book on McIntyre, Amazon Beaming) just might be the perfect stage production counterpart to the film Fantasia for viewing in an altered state (as have been previously recommended to me).

TheWallis.org/Encounter

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