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Simon McBurney: Welcome to the jungle

Simon McBurney’s game-changing new theatre piece The Encounter premieres at the EIF. McBurney, Petru Popescu & Kirsty Housley discuss it.

Simon McBurney’s game-changing new theatre piece The Encounter premieres at the EIF. McBurney, Petru Popescu and Kirsty Housley discuss it.

The Encounter, a new production by celebrated British theatre company Complicite, takes its audience on a psychological and sensory journey through deepest Amazonia. On stage, and alone throughout, director and performer Simon McBurney transports his audience into a strange new world of storytelling.

In this technically demanding piece, McBurney simultaneously plays himself and the central protagonist, Loren McIntyre, a photojournalist who in 1969 became lost while attempting to photograph the elusive Mayoruna tribe in the Amazon rainforest.

McBurney became intrigued by McIntyre's story after reading about the American in Petru Popescu's book, Amazon Beaming, so much so that he even travelled to the Amazon himself.

In this film for Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Arts, McBurney recounts how his attempt to dramatise McIntyre's story inspired a whole new approach to the theatrical experience.

Release date:

Duration:

9 minutes

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