The first time I encountered this production was in Manchester. Tonight, I watched an early version of this show recorded live at The Barbican. Simon McBurney of Complicite filmed a special alternative introduction from his house especially for this unusual situation we find ourselves in. It fitted brilliantly as part of the build up to the show. There was an effective illusion which took you by surprise and complimented the main themes within it. If you watch this performance (and I really hope you do but you’ve only got until 22nd May to do so) you must wear headphones to get the full effect.
This was an experimental performance about stories passed on through generations, the sharing of cultures, and the blurred line between fiction and reality. “Amazon Beaming” by Petru Popescu is a novel which the performance narrative was based on. Picture in your mind, the year 1969. Loren McIntyre was a National Geographic photographer who found himself lost among the people of the remote Javari Valley in Brazil. It was a perilous but exciting adventure which would transform his life, highlighting the brink of human consciousness. Writer, Director, and Performer, Simon McBurney pieced together the fragments of McIntyre's expedition into the deepest, darkest, depths of our fragile Amazon rainforest. McBurney creatively used innovative and impressive technology for his solo performance to construct a kaleidoscopic world of sound. The notion of play invited the audience to construct this awe-inspiring trip through imagination.
McBurney gently eased the audience into the story. The philosophical opening drew our attention to the idea that stories don’t existence outside of our imaginations such as the man-made construction of time. During a demonstration of the 3D binaural sound technology, the live, recorded, past, present, and future all blurred into one. Time and stories were no longer linear; time lines and time zones were all over the place. The story between McBurney and his real-life daughter struggling to fall asleep and always wanting a bed time story was an anchor back to the present day and broke up the explorer’s story set in the late '60s. Empathy and proximity and the relationship between the two was emphasised through the use of this wonderful technology. The concurrent live theatre experience felt by all in the auditorium was made more live and visceral – you travelled on that journey with McBurney and McIntyre.
I read a quote once in “The Stage” newspaper which stated: “Theatre only exists in the eyes and minds of the audience”. This statement was 100% applicable to this show. Complicite played with various conventions of theatre as stimuli for the audience to construct the world of the rainforest and the characters of the story in their imaginations. It was immersive theatre of the mind. The sound team for the show had travelled to the Amazon rainforest to record sound clips, to play back to the audience through their headphones alongside McBurney’s live narration. They cleverly manipulated the pitch of McBurney’s voice to create the fictional voice of McIntyre with an American accent. A loop pedal was often employed to loop soundtracks to evoke a feeling of disorientation during the dangerous journey.
There was a lovely balance between calm and cacophonic sounds. I really liked the moment where the audience were taught about the tradition of tribal dance. The live sound of McBurney performing a ritual dance, where he tapped his feet and clapped, was overlapped to create the auditory illusion of lots of people dancing. Many props onstage were played with to generate certain sounds representing something. The whole thing was magical; both in how it made you feel and regularly coming back to this discussion about illusion - as we willingly suspended our disbelief.
A cultural comment was made about how the use of technology in recording videos and capturing photographs for memories has changed significantly around the world yet the tribal people of the rainforest live without the kind of technology present on stage. It’s rather mind-blowing. The projected images on the cyclorama which looked like the wall of a recording booth performed as a visual stimulus to construct the story in our heads. An abstract moving image of a water droplet trickling down suggested the persistent and heavy rainfall of the jungle. There was a whole wash of colours which were aesthetically-pleasing to the eye.
When I first saw this I was mesmerised by it and I still am to this today. This joyous, magical, psychedelic, and epic story opens up the imagination. It will make anyone want to explore the world and it certainly inspires me to devise theatre.
Reviewer - Sam Lowe
on - 16/5/20
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