The Encounter NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (637)
See it if You want to see one of the best shows ever on Broadway. Show is totally immersive. You are theater, visual arts, lighting, sound, creativity
Don't see it if You are willing to miss the performance of the man who will win the Tony for Featured Actor in a Play - Simon McBurney! Just fantastic.
See it if You love good storytelling and/or amazing audio design. Also if you want a very different, personal theatrical experience.
Don't see it if You want to let the actors do all the work to entertain you, you need a lot of visual stimulation, or can't sit still for 2hrs. Read more
See it if You enjoy immersive one man storytelling type shows with little actual action.
Don't see it if You have trouble listening to audiobooks, or similar formats, this will not hold your attention. Read more
See it if You like unusual theatre. The audience wears head phones throughout the one man tour de force. It is simply amazing.
Don't see it if You only like traditional, linear plays. And it is just a little long (2 hours no intermission.)
See it if You want to be mesmerized by an inventive, energized, provocative production that blurs the line between reality and the metaphysical
Don't see it if You don't want to be challenged to dig for deeper meaning and want a simple linear plot line.
See it if You want to experience something brand new, and be transported.
Don't see it if You only are in the mood to see a song and dance show. Read more
See it if Your open to new forms of show presentation. Are you willing and able to use your mind to create the scene visually.
Don't see it if You can't switch easily from the story to the present. Your expecting anything resembling a traditional Broadway show. Read more
See it if you can deal with true theater that breaks through all kinds of preconceptions as to what theater should be...and comes 'round again.
Don't see it if you have preconceived notions of what theater should be. And you fear techniques like binaural sounds
Critic Reviews (62)
"The one-man show 'The Encounter' is a public podcast, complete with high-quality headphones for every theatergoer and enough yawns for an anesthesia symposium...Simon McBurney is no entertainer. He’s a peddler of pretentious, self-satisfied wisdom and overhyped novelty...This intermissionless, nearly two-hour snoozefest has a massively self-generated sense of what it is."
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"'The Encounter' resembles an immersive, sensory take on the old-fashioned radio play, with multiple voices, heavy breathing and other sounds fully engulfing the listener. But after a while, the novelty wears off and you are left with unending bits of description and psychological contemplation. You can’t help but wonder whether it was really meant to be experienced live in a Broadway theater...Wouldn’t it make more sense to listen to the piece with your own headphones on your own time?"
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"While 'The Encounter' could easily settle as a radio-play, McBurney's up to something far more ambitious...The nearly two-hour intermissionless performance is a tour-de-force as McBurney entertains, enlightens and instructs with mesmerizing talent...At times it may feel like sensory overload. I zoned out at points but much like the most vivid dream, this 'Encounter' is impossible to shake."
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"A dazzlingly disorienting head-trip...McBurney's performance is a marvel of athleticism as he bounds around the stage from microphone to microphone. But it's way too easy, sitting in the dark being lulled by sound machines, to drift off for extended periods. The show feels much too long and, at points, way too heady...While 'The Encounter' ticks nearly all of the boxes of 'snob hit,' it ends up a breath of fresh air for audience members who believe in theater's ability to push boundaries."
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"'The Encounter' comes off more as a demonstration of technological capabilities than engaging storytelling...For a good twenty minutes or a half-hour, the technological display is very entertaining. The narrative, however, isn't, as McIntyre's inner monologues grow tiresome and the environment recreations seem redundant."
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"McBurney gets inside one's head, but he never penetrates one's heart or mind...'The Encounter' becomes entangled in its fundamental contradictions, its method of storytelling strangely at odds with the ideas it hopes to convey...These circumstances are hardly ideal for creating drama, and the text proves even less helpful...Whatever else you say about 'The Encounter,' it is executed with supreme confidence and skill. Still, this is a voyage without a satisfying destination."
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"Perhaps the most arresting facet of this towering accomplishment is that it all feels as though it's been created just for you. Delivered as it is through a headset you're provided upon taking your seat, the soundscape is intensely intimate, which only makes the shivers cut deeper...This is theatre so pure, it doesn't need sets. But in eschewing them, 'The Encounter' gets them as no other show ever has—and oh so much more, too."
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"The dazzling artistry of 'The Encounter' is initially exhilarating but grows tedious after 30 minutes...It’s essentially a glorified radio show. Technically breathtaking and superbly performed, its length exceeds its narrative interest...Gradually the chronicle becomes murky as the audience sits in varying degrees of darkness listening to McBurney through their headsets. Rambling on without a clear sense of plot, his tale devolves into an endurance test."
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