The Encounter NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (637)
See it if you are okay with something completely different and unlike any dramatic or comedic or musical show ever before.
Don't see it if you don't want to wear headphones the entire time,don't like intense and out of the usual storylines or long monologue or narrative stories. Read more
See it if you are open to an immersive theatrical experience using masterful storytelling and special aural technology. Headphones provided at seats.
Don't see it if you are not interested in the real experiences of a photographer who has a wild time in the Amazon rain forest meeting an indigenous tribe.
See it if ...you enjoy different and progressive theater events. You like to marvel at good technology. Enjoy stories that you pay attention to.
Don't see it if You need a musical or many sets. Read more
See it if You are open to a new theatrical experience, are intrigued by the art of storytelling, like to be challenged a bit. Performance mastery!
Don't see it if You cannot wear headphones, don't like solo shows, want big production, are not prepared for some visceral reactions, want linear story. Read more
See it if you're game for imaginative auditory experience delivered with passionate intensity by impressively talented McBurney; are alert & focused!
Don't see it if you run late (miss headphone/tech check), want elaborate sets, are easily distracted, not open to unusual storytelling or topic (tribesmen). Read more
See it if You might appreciate the modern analogy to sitting around a campfire and hearing a story with audio design facilitating deeper listening
Don't see it if If philosophical and mystical questions are not your thing, your consciousness is closed to other's understandings of "reality" or POVs.
See it if You are interested in a unique theatre experience. The show recounts a man's experience with an isolated tribe in the Amazon.
Don't see it if You expect traditional theatre, are uncomfortable wearing headphones. Did not enjoy one man shows. Read more
See it if You enjoy innovative theater that has you experience a play in a whole new way. Plus you like humor, drama and multi-level realities.
Don't see it if You don't like wearing headphones. You are not interested in parenthood, the Amazon, spiritual journeys or innovation
Critic Reviews (62)
"This is a unique theatrical experience. It might be compared to a live radio broadcast aided and abetted by contemporary audio were McBurney’s role not so emphatically physical. Close your eyes occasionally. Visual imagination provides. The story is fascinating, the script visceral and intimate, if a tad long. Acting is a tour de force...'The Encounter' is well served by sound designers Gareth Fry and Pete Makin. This is unquestionably the best and most intricate you’ll hear to date."
Read more
"The two-hour tale of a white guy being seduced by the rituals of noble savages and engaging in various hallucinogenic ordeals that help him see the world in a new way struck me as the same-old-same-old. Maybe it was better in the book but in the theater, my mind wandered...A shorter play might have helped to keep me—and it—better focused. Instead, his one rambles on for two intermissionless hours and then kind of dribbles to an end."
Read more
"No matter how serenely I tried to let the sounds in my headphones and the events onstage take me on a visceral inner journey, I couldn’t get beyond the sense I was hearing a radio play with plenty of sound effects and incidental visuals. It is, I hasten to say, a compelling radio play...Whatever else happens on Broadway this season, it is unlikely to be anything like these nonstop two hours. I’m sad that it felt to me like an engrossing, high-end novelty act."
Read more
"His performance is a verbal and physical tour de force...This late, rather long segment of the play dips into a New Age-y kind of mysticism that might not be to everyone's aesthetic taste. But taken in its entirety, 'The Encounter' is a bracingly original theater experience, and McBurney confirms his place as one of the most imaginative figures in the English-speaking theater."
Read more
"Technologically, it’s pretty fun stuff. Alas, the story becomes so disorienting and meandering that it doesn’t make for a great night at the theater...As the second hour evolves, 'The Encounter' becomes more like performance art, with McBurney losing himself in McIntyre’s cacophonous dehydrated delusions...As an aural experience, 'The Encounter' is an accomplishment, but the story takes too long to arrive at an unsatisfying destination."
Read more
"McBurney draws us in with him, sometimes deafened with layers of sounds. The experience is fascinating and at times, exciting...It is also fatiguing and demanding, 110 minutes without an intermission. McBurney is an intriguing performer, drawing us into his exhausting world with enthusiasm...'The Encounter' is a unique sensory theatrical experience, technology with immersive sonic effects that lend a feeling of isolation in a crowded theater."
Read more
"It’s somewhat overwhelming. At times, the story was difficult for me to follow, as it contains conversations with people we’ve never seen, and I found the exchanges confusing....I left the theatre with a 'How does he do it?' question rattling around my brain, which it shared with another question,'Why does he do it?!'...The evening was very much like watching a brilliant actor play all the roles in a radio program, one which contained vividly drawn characters and an exotic setting."
Read more
"The intermissionless hour-and-50-minutes, with themes about natives and the power of nature, comes off like a long sit (I also thought the exchanges between McBurney and the voice of his daughter were a tad too cute), but generally, this is a hypnotic work that breathes new life into the one-man show genre. Loud kudos-in-the-headphones to McBurney and cohorts, who include Michael Levine (design), Gareth Fry and Pete Malkin (sound)."
Read more