The Encounter image via PIAF.
Based on a book written by American photographer Loren McIntyre The Encounter explores the nature of life and death in a highly unusual performance format at this year’s Perth International Arts Festival. The audience are asked to wear headphones for nearly the entire two hour performance and the recording technology is so extraordinary that you can actually feel the voice of UK performer Richard Katz walking behind you or in your right or left ear thanks to the Binomial Head on stage.
This is a 20-year journey for multi Olivier Award-winning Director Simon McBurney from when he first picked up the book Amazon Beaming by Petru Popescu. It has taken a while for the technology to ‘catch up’ with the ideas of the UK based Complicite company led by Artistic Director McBurney, who are in Perth as a co-production with Edinburgh International Festival. Romanian novelist Popescu travelled extensively including to Amazonia where he met Loren McIntyre who shared his life story with the writer. The account of McIntyre being kidnapped by elusive tribes and discovering the source of the giant river became the book Amazon Beaming and Popescu has followed up with other bestsellers and now lives in the USA. McIntyre unfortunately died in 2003 so has not seen this realisation of his experiences.
Simon McBurney is an actor and writer as well as one of Europe’s most original theatre makers and co-founded of Complicite. He has also appeared in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation. The sole performer Richard Katz has a history of performances with Complicite and is listed as contributor to the development of The Encounter as are several other Complicite team members. In the after show talk, Associate Director Jemima James stresses the collaborative effort of this work and how technology was seen to be secondary to simply being a great story.
Katz is an extraordinary whirlwind of energy and the central idea that we only see what we want to see is effectively communicated through the dialogue, technology of sound jumps and the artifice or construction of story is very much the emphasis. The confusion between fictions that we construct and reality are immediately in play; Katz starts by taking a snap of us in the audience to send to his daughter and this paves the way for both the use of technology and use of image as McIntyre’s purpose was when he was lost in the Amazon. This breakdown of audience expectations as to the standard constructs of theatre work is also indicative of Simon McBurney’s ethos.
The Binomial Head from Sennheiser plays an integral part in this as it captures sound around 360 degrees and puts us as audience members, front, left and centre as Richard Katz ‘takes a walk through 2.6 pounds of electrified pate you call your brain’ whispering first into our right ear then our left ear as communicated through the headphones that we all wear. This is an extraordinarily effective device making the integration of sound and sound effects (think of the old fashioned radio play happening on the stage with crinkled VHS tape making an effective jungle trip as Katz stomps on it!) a real highlight of this work. This is an aural spectacular, particularly suited for those of us who over-extend our ears (usually a disadvantage in this muzak-restauranted world!) and closing your ears you can ‘hear’ planes, the beach, wading ashore, all the magic of the Amazon forest animals (again a fantastic highlight) and of course the clicking of the camera lens.
Layers of sound continue with the interweaving of various interviews, for instance with understanding the nature of time expert Marcus du Sautoy, the author of the book Petru Popescu and Rebecca Spooner who talks about the impact of scientists on remote tribes, along with a young girl playing the protagonist’s daughter back home in his London flat as he is researching this theatre work. The young girl is restless and unable to sleep and frequently interrupts with a directly naïve question that moves the action along. The gentle sense of humour evident in the writing humanises what is at times a philosophical treatise on life and death.
We get to meet the people of this isolated Amazon tribe and join McIntrye in their search for the beginning. As part of this we experience tribal jealousies, suspicion of him as a white man, tribal rituals including their nomadic movements, the loss of his camera and what you might call his purpose for being there, enjoy the animals of the jungle and have a drug induced shamanstic experience as part of the tribal experience. All the time reflecting on the nature of time, communication (telepathy seems to be the preferred mode with the tribal elders) and our purpose in life. Paraphrasing the survival expert Rebecca Spooner who said the scientist benefits more than the ‘discovered’ tribe in these types of research so the search in ‘going to the beginning’ could be a death or a new beginning.
This type of theatre experience from Complicite in The Encounter is like nothing ever experienced before – it’s wonderful that Complicite are really emphasising how we hear and listen to the world demonstrating that is how we make our reality and Katz is an extraordinary and empathetic sole performer.
Rating: 4 1/2 stars out of 5
The Encounter
Devised and performed by Complicite
Performed by Richard Katz
Directed by Simon McBurney
Co-directed by Kirsty Housley
Designed by Michael Levine
Sound Design by Gareth Fry with Pete Malkin
Lighting Design by Paul Anderson
Projection by Will Duke
Associate Direction by Jemima James
His Majesty’s Theatre, Perth
16-25 February 2017
Perth International Arts Festival
perthfestival.com.au
10 February – 5 March 2017​
A CO-PRODUCTION WITH EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL, THE BARBICAN, LONDON, ONASSIS CULTURAL CENTRE ATHENS, SCHAUBÜHNE BERLIN, THÉÂTRE VIDY-LAUSANNE AND WARWICK ARTS CENTRE
