The Encounter Page 3
yet our translations and exchanges become ever more disjunctured
as we inhabit and construct places of exclusion where nothing
converges. Like you, Simon McBurney is a traveller who navigates,
deciphers and translates our incommensurable worlds.
The
índios
on that faraway shore in 1500 remain silent in the pages
of your letter. But the twenty-first-century
índio
is broadcasting,
directing films, writing poetry and posting on Facebook. They were
photographing Simon McBurney on their iPhones as he recorded
their dances and they were not there to be discovered. As the
contemporary poet Davi Kopenawa Yanomami writes (cited in
Amazônia
: catalogue for an exhibition by Gringo Cardia; Fare Arte,
2004):
...I am a son of the ancient Yanomamis
I live in the forest where my people have lived since I was born
and I don’t tell white men that I discovered it!
It has always been here, before me.
I don’t say: ‘I discovered the sky!’
I don’t say: ‘I discovered the fish, I discovered the hunting!’
They were always there from the beginning of time.
I simply say that I eat them, that’s all.
Let all our encounters be a mutual feast.
A kiss of your hand,
Paul Heritage
Paul Heritage is Professor of Drama and Performance and Director
of People’s Palace Projects, Queen Mary University of London.
Simon McBurney © Robbie Jack
Binaural head in Epping Forest © Sarah Ainslie
Designer Michael Levine in BRE anechoic chamber
© Simon McBurney
Simon McBurney © Robbie Jack
‘a company who are incapable of remaining within known
theatrical boundaries’
Independent
Since it was founded in 1983, Complicite has performed worldwide,
winning over fifty major theatre awards.
Recent work includes
Lionboy
, its first show for children and
families,
The Master and Margarita,
Shun-kin, co-produced the
Setagaya Public Theatre, Tokyo, and A Disappearing Number,
winner of the 2007 Olivier Award for Best New Play. Alongside its
productions, Complicite runs an award-winning Creative Learning
programme, with recent projects including
Like Mother, Like
Daughter
and
Tea.
For Complicite
Artistic Director
Simon McBurney
Producer
Judith Dimant
Associate Producer
Poppy Keeling
(Creative Learning)
Finance Manager
Louise Wiggins
Assistant Producer
Naomi Webb
Communications &
Holly Foulds
Development Manager
Project Coordinator
Dina Mousawi
Administrative Coordinator
Claire Gilbert
Trustees
Sarah Coop, Roger Graef OBE, Frances Hughes, Tom Morris,
Stephen Taylor, Sue Woodford-Hollick OBE
www.complicite.org
Registered Charity No. 1012507
TheatredeComplicite
@Complicite
THE ENCOUNTER
Complicite/Simon McBurney
Inspired by Amazon Beaming
by Petru Popescu
Note on the Text
The Encounter
is performed by one actor and two sound
operators. During the introduction the audience are asked to put
on a set of headphones, which they then wear for the duration of
the performance. Everything they hear is through these
headphones. The actor uses a range of microphones that can be
modified to create the voice of Loren McIntyre and other
characters. The actor also creates a variety of live foley sound
effects onstage, and uses loop pedals to create exterior
soundscapes and the interior worlds of the characters. The
performer also plays some sound and audio recordings live
through their mobile phone, iPod, and various speakers. All
sounds created or played onstage are picked up and relayed to
the audience’s headphones through a variety of onstage
microphones, one of which is binaural.
Other sound is played and mixed live by two operators who in
part improvise in reaction to the performer onstage.
In this text only the most basic indication is given as to which
microphones, loop pedals and other effects are used, and when.
Most of these decisions have been left for each performer and
company to discover.
Characters
LIVE CHARACTERS ONSTAGE, PLAYED BY THE ACTOR
ACTOR, originally played by Simon McBurney
LOREN McINTYRE, a National Geographic photographer,
aged fifty-two
PILOT, flies Loren into the Javari in 1969
CAMBIO, a Mayoruna shaman who speaks both Mayoruna
and Portuguese
BARNACLE, this is pre-recorded, and heard as Loren’s voice
reverberating in his own head. It will be characterised
throughout the script as ‘BARNACLE (LOREN voice-over)’
RECORDED VOICES
During the introduction, and throughout the piece, we hear the
voices of people that Simon McBurney discussed aspects of this
show and related subjects with. In order of appearance, they
are:
NOMA McBURNEY, Simon McBurney’s daughter, aged five
MARCUS DU SAUTOY, Simonyi Professor for the Public
Understanding of Science and Professor of Mathematics at
the University of Oxford
REBECCA SPOONER, campaigner at Survival International,
the global movement for tribal peoples’ rights
PETRU POPESCU, author of Amazon Beaming
IRIS FRIEDMAN, writer, and wife of Petru Popescu
IAIN McGILCHRIST, psychiatrist and philosopher
STEVEN ROSE, Emeritus Professor of Biology and
Neurobiology at the Open University and Gresham
College, London
GEORGE MARSHALL, climate-change communications
specialist, co-founder of Climate Outreach and author of
Don’t Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to
Ignore Climate Change
JESS WORTH, writer and activist, campaigner with direct-
action theatre group ‘BP or not BP?’ to end oil sponsorship
of the arts
DAVID FARMER, oceanographer
NIXIWAKA YAWANAWA, member of the Yawanawa tribe,
currently living in Bath. He is the voice of himself and the
Mayoruna
ROMEO CORISEPA DREVE, member of the Harakmbut tribe,
currently living in Exeter. He is the voice of Barnacle in
Mayoruna
1. The Beginning
As the audience enters, it seems there is almost nothing on
stage. Anechoic soundproofing covers the back wall, but the
stage should appear prosaic to the point of dullness.
Onstage are various speakers and microphones. A desk and
chair are downstage-right. A binaural head is centre stage,
facing the audience.
Multi-packs of water bottles are placed at various spots around
the stage.
The opening section is partly improvised.
The
ACTOR
invites the audience to turn their telephones off,
and from this simple announcement begins to talk to them in a
conversational manner that suggests the show has not really yet
begun. This draws the audience into another kind of attention,
through the description of how the evening will unfold.
ACTOR. My daughter is five. She doesn’t believe I work at
night, so I’m going to take a photo of you all on my iPhone
to prove I was really here. I have more photographs of my
children here than there are photographs of my entire life.
And these are just the ones I’ve taken in the last week. And
there are more photographs on a single page of my phone
than I have of the whole of my father’s childhood. Looking
at these pictures of my children, I feel such a sense of
responsibility. Because when they look at them, they feel as
though they’re looking back at their whole lives.
But it is not their lives, it is only a story. And I worry they’ll
mistake this for reality, just as we all mistake stories for
reality.
There’s something uniquely human about telling stories. You
might say that stories are what have allowed the human race
to thrive. Stories, fiction, are how we explain, organise and
agree on the meaning of our lives.
For example, two men who have never met might go to war
together to fight and die for something called the United
Kingdom. But the United Kingston does not exist. It’s a
fictional idea that helps us organise ourselves into… what?
Two lawyers will fight to defend someone they don’t know
because they both believe in the existence of the law, justice
and human rights. But these things don’t exist. They’re
fictions. Stories.
They don’t exist outside the collective imagination, but they
allow us to organise ourselves by forming narratives we can
all agree on wherever we are. They shape everything we see
and believe in.
That is why I feel so responsible for the stories I tell my
children…
I remember my father reading me bedtime stories as a child
that transported me to other places and times. And that was
how, for the first time, I started to get inside someone else’s
head, and imagine what their experiences felt like.
And now I get into bed with my children at night, and tell
them stories in the same way. I watch them empathising with
the characters, discovering what connects and separates them
from other people, other worlds. It is an intimate process.
It seems empathy and proximity are connected, so I’d like to
get closer to you. Can you put your headphones on?
The following text is spoken into a microphone and is heard
by the audience through their individual headphones. From
now on, all narration, dialogue and other text, as well as all
sound effects, are heard by the audience through the
headphones.
So now instead of shouting I can be as close to you as I am
to my children. Closer in fact, because now, instead of
whispering in your ear, I am in the middle of your head.
I would like to check your headphones are all working, I will
take a walk from one side of your head to the other, without
even moving.
The sound the audience hears moves to the left ear.
I am now in your left ear, and now… I will move across to
the right side.
The sound moves across towards the right ear. A very brief
pause in case any audience members still have their
headphones the wrong way round.
This is all being manipulated by technicians at the sound
desk, but you have the feeling that my voice has ‘walked
across’ your brain. I have not, but you ‘feel’ that I have.
Now you will feel that my voice is getting lower in pitch. It
is not. It is simply being modified by a pitch modifier, also
operated from the sound desk behind you. But it does appear
that my voice has lowered.
The following is spoken into a different microphone, with
voice-modification effects pitching the voice lower.
LOREN. And as my voice is getting lower, I too begin to ‘feel’
not quite myself. It feels more comfortable to me to speak
now with an American accent. And this is the voice I will
adopt for the principal character in the piece, the
photographer Loren McIntyre. Loren McIntyre whose story
unfolds in 1969. Here he is. And now you begin to accept
this pitch as truly my own voice. So much so that when I
speak in my ‘normal’ voice, the one I first used…
The
ACTOR
moves to the other microphone which is not
pitch modified.
ACTOR. Of course I immediately sound like Mickey Mouse.
My voice was modified in pitch. But how might we also play
similarly with the idea of space?
The binaural head is now turned on, picking up the
ACTOR
’s voice and the acoustics of the space. The
following is heard binaurally.
To do so I’m going to use another microphone, a binaural
microphone, which imitates the human head. It places you
aurally right here on the stage. As if these ears were yours.
It’s as if you were standing onstage with me.
It’s a somewhat skewed impression because the right ear is
your left ear and the left ear is your right ear. So I’m just
going to turn it around so it’s in the right configuration.
The head is turned to face upstage.
Now what I would like you to do is close your eyes. I’m
going to take a little walk, around your head. You should
have the impression that I really am beside you. This is not
digital manipulation, this is what I’m really doing. Now I’m
getting a little bit too close, maybe a little too intimate.
I’m a little bit dry, so I think I’ll have some water.
Pours and drinks water.
That’s better.
And to give you a sense of how the brain mistakes fiction for
reality, I’m going to breathe into your ear and it will literally
start to heat up.
Breathes.
Oh and there’s just a little hair here that I’ll get for you. And
while I’m here I think I’ll give you a little haircut.
Snips the scissors around the binaural head.
SFX on small hand-held speaker: a mosquito flying around
the head.
And now there’s this damned mosquito flying around.
Please open your eyes.
The
ACTOR
is standing with a speaker in their hand.
And there’s no mosquito. There’s just this speaker. It sounds
real, but it is in fact just a –
The following is pre-recorded, although that might not be
immediately obvious.
RECORDING. – speaker which is producing the sound of the
mosquito. And as you look at it, the sound seems less
convincing, simply because your eyes are telling you that
you are listening to a recording.
And in fact, it’s not even a
real mosquito, but a recording of someone blowing on a
piece of paper and a comb…
(
Continues.
)
LIVE. And what you’ve probably realised by now is that this
too is a recording. This is something that happened six
months ago, when we were working on the show. Excuse
me, can you turn the mosquito off now.
RECORDING.
What?
LIVE. Can you turn that off; it’s really annoying.
RECORDING.
You want me to turn it off?
LIVE. Yes, it’s really annoying.
RECORDING.
Okay.
LIVE. Thank you. My voice over there is a recording, he
doesn’t exist.
RECORDING.
What do you mean I don’t exist?
LIVE. You’re not real.
RECORDING.
Well, of course I’m real.
LIVE. He’s a recording from the past.
RECORDING.
No, I’m in the present and you’re in the future!
LIVE. No you’re in the past and I’m the present.
RECORDING.
Well okay, I’m in the past. Shall we swap sides?
LIVE. Okay, no problem. That’s not going to affect causality.
RECORDING.
So, where are you?
LIVE. I’m on stage, at [name of theatre].
RECORDING.
Oh my god! Should I be worried?
LIVE. No, not particularly.
RECORDING.
How many people are there?
LIVE. Quite a few.
RECORDING.
How’s it going?
LIVE. Well, they seem to be enjoying it.
RECORDING.
I’ll just carry on talking then. Since I’m now
clearly somewhere in the past, and I don’t really exist. Well
actually, I think I do, because your past is probably more
important to you than your present. And actually your past is
probably more present to you than anything else. It’s created
who you are. But your past is also a story. And we use that
story to try to predict the future. So we’ll look back and say…
The recorded voice continues as the
ACTOR
onstage begins
to speak over it.
LIVE. That’s true. We wouldn’t be who we are without all the