The Encounter (Golden Theatre) Created by and Starring Simon McBurney

I have seen a lot of theatre and I can honestly say that I have never seen, or heard, anything like Simon McBurney’s The Encounter. 

The Encounter is, on the surface, the recounting of the true tale of an explorer’s quest to find a remote Brazilian tribe and what happens when he not only finds them, but lives with them for a time.  Interspersed with the tale are daily moments of mundane life, interaction with an obviously adored child and musings from a restlessly creative mind as he works to create the work which you are now seeing/hearing.

Under the surface, The Encounter, is an aurally saturating trip, individual for each audience member.  Headphones not only bring the action, via sound, remarkably close, but isolate you from the other members of the audience, something that changes the paradigm of the community aspect of most theater experiences. 

For me, the joy of The Encounter was an instantaneous drop into childhood.  I fell off the cliff and that tale, told so close to me, felt as though it was inside of my head.  I was in that jungle, trying to communicate with that Head man.  Imagination given voice or, more accurately, voices.

Simon McBurney is a fringe artist whose unique sensibilities make him and this ‘play’ a foreshadowing of what is to come.  We are craving the new and the different.  Luckily for us, The Encounter is both.  I eagerly await Mr. McBurney’s next offering.