Experimental Theatre: The Encounter

Recommended. If you like experiential theatre, “The Encounter" is best in class. This one man show is a truly immersive and impressive production. Using a Sennheiser binaural microphone, shaped like a human head Simon McBurney deftly creates the illusion of space, distance and direction through audio and stagecraft. The audience wears headphones while Simon tells the true story of National Geographic photographer Loren McIntyre lost in a remote area of the Brazilian rain forest in 1969, which leads to a startling encounter with the mysterious Mayoruna tribe. With earphones on, there’s no distinguishing between the live and the prerecorded. It's a high tech head trip expertly crafted and acted. It plays like a fever dream told in lucid nonlinear fragments of space and time. Now at San Francisco’s Curran Theatre for a limited run.