The Encounter NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (637)
See it if fantasic. you like to close yourself from reality and get through life by isolated sound
Don't see it if no reason not to
See it if You want to see an extremely unique storytelling experience. You want a fully immersive show with great acting.
Don't see it if You only like simple shows and do not have an open mind.
See it if you want to be mesmerized & experience technology in its utmost.
Don't see it if Youdo not like avant garde theater
See it if You want to be a real participant in an extraordinary production filled with irony, sound, masterful writing & acting. Brilliant.
Don't see it if You you are uncomfortable wearing headphones. Don't like to use your imagination. You require a linear plot.
See it if You like to be intellectually engaged and appreciate brilliance.
Don't see it if You only like traditional plays. Read more
See it if you love truly artistic story telling with sensory experiences and can Allow yourself to be transported.
Don't see it if ... innovative experiences don't thrill you . Hate wearing headphones .
See it if you like avant-garde shows, are thrilled by spectacular sound design, enjoy podcasts, and love a gripping yarn spectacularly told.
Don't see it if you don't enjoy solo performances, require vasts amount of spectacle, or feel uncomfortable having to wear headphones for 90 min.
See it if You want to see the best solo show in a long time, one that uses a high-tech sound design to help create a primal story and experience.
Don't see it if You don't mind missing Simon McBurney's flawless voices, characters and overall riveting performance.
Critic Reviews (62)
"No production on Broadway has ever thrown the doors of perception open as widely as 'The Encounter,' Simon McBurney’s astonishing one-man show...McBurney sustains the momentum of his story as tensely and enjoyably as if it were a Rudyard Kipling yarn...It may be he who’s running and dancing and leaping and sweating. But by the end of this nonpareil show’s two intermissionless hours, you are as lightheaded, exhausted, baffled and invigorated as if it had been you."
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"Closing one’s eyes in the theater can be a sign of boredom. But shutting the peepers at McBurney’s utterly transfixing mind-tickler 'The Encounter' is a valid expression of rapture...McBurney is a wryly engaging performer who can command an audience by sheer force...In this primal, lysergic movie for the brain, McBurney covers a dazzling array of topics...Part mystic thriller, part tricksy aural illusion, 'The Encounter' offers a meeting of ear, mind and soul you will never forget."
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"This is thrilling in its way, but as you begin to adjust to the tech tricks you also begin to wonder how relevant and expressive they really are...It’s immersive, yes, but not so much theater: It’s more like watching a radio show in a studio, with special kudos to the Foley artist. Even McBurney’s exhausting efforts to bring the story to gestural life are undercut by the sound...'The Encounter' may be happening in your head but, ultimately, it’s someone else’s trip."
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"At first glance 'The Encounter' feels like a radio play accompanied by thick layers of sound effects, some live and others pre-recorded. Then the set, an anonymous-looking radio studio, comes to hallucinatory life, and suddenly you find yourself swept up in Mr. McBurney’s high-tech dramatization of McIntyre’s bizarre yet somehow believable tale. The result is a piece of storytelling that is as haunting and enthralling as a half-remembered dream."
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"It's a mindblower...All of this is conveyed ingeniously by McBurney in an attic set as he re-creates for us the story through the use of much electronic gear that alters his voice for different characters...The show is a wonder, but I couldn’t help but feel it also was a bit of a con that forced us to pay more attention to the technical gimcrackery than to the extraordinary tale unfolding. Would imaginative staging with an actual cast, have had as much impact? I’d like to think so."
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"Sonically, it’s mind-boggling. Dramatically, less so. The rambling tale gets trying as it switches from past and present and from jungle to McBurney’s daughter’s bedroom. It’s unlike anything else on Broadway, and it is a head trip. But sometimes 'The Encounter' goes in one ear and out the other."
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"Given how thoroughly the audience is let in both on the technology and the artifice, it's remarkable how quickly and completely the piece becomes an immersive narrative...'The Encounter' is an extraordinarily visceral, often hypnotic piece of storytelling. It must be added, however, that any solo show running close to two intermissionless hours asks a lot of its audience, and this one is more impactful in the moment than in terms of lingering resonance."
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"This virtuosic theater maker’s transporting bells and whistles indeed make 'The Encounter' the next best thing to being there...Those deriving little stimulation from learning the customs of a people who live in diametric opposition to us urbane types, may find themselves drifting off during the intermission-less show. It didn’t happen to me...'The Encounter' is a demonstration of the power of technology to immerse us ever more thrillingly in narrative art."
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