The Encounter — Complicite

Overview

The story goes that, in 1971, National Geographic's Loren McIntyre found the source of the great Amazon River. Last year, author Petru Popescu published his version of the story, called Amazon Beaming, in which Popescu details how McIntyre found a tribal chief with whom he was able to communicate — telepathically. That is, with their brains. Yep.

This instance of multimedia theatre, showing at the Malthouse from February 3–10, really challenges the audience to approach the production holistically, in terms of their senses. Taking the idea of telepathic communication, legendary director Simon McBurney and theatre stalwart Richard Katz project all the sound through a 360-degree microphone straight into the ears of their audience via headphones. McBurney pushes the audience's imagination to immerse themselves into the humid and mysterious environment of the Amazon through Katz's impressive performance in what is essentially a two-hour monologue.