About the Artists

Paul Crewes Rachel Fine Artistic Director Managing Director AND COMPLICITE / SIMON MCBURNEY The Encounter INSPIRED BY THE BOOK AMAZON BEAMING BY PETRU POPESCU PHOTO BY ROBBIE JACK DIRECTED AND PERFORMED BY Simon McBurney ABOUT COMPLICITE PETRU POPESCU (Author of Amazon CO-DIRECTOR ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR SONG CREDITS: Beaming London-based Complicite was last seen in L.A. with ) is Romania’s best-known novelist. In his Kirsty Housley Jemima James “In the White Silence: Beginning” by John Shun-kin (2013), Strange Poetry (2004) and The homeland, he wrote mordant anti-communist Luther Adams. Performed by The Oberlin Noise of Time (2002). 2016 saw the launch of prose that put him in direct conflict with dictator DESIGN SOUND LIGHTING PROJECTION Music Ensemble; Tim Weiss, Conductor. Complicite Associates, a new programme to Ceaușescu. When invited to the International From the sound recording John Luther Writers’ Workshop of the University of Iowa, Michael Levine Gareth Fry with Pete Malkin Paul Anderson Will Duke support theatre makers and artists. Bryony Adams: In the White Silence. New World Kimmings was the inaugural Complicite Associate Popescu defected to the West. He has travelled Records #80600-2 !2003 © 2003 Anthology and A Pacifist’s Guide to the War on Cancer was its extensively, including to Amazonia, where he met of Recorded Music, Inc. Original recording PRODUCTION MANAGER SOUND SUPERVISOR first production which played at the National Loren McIntyre, who shared his life story with the available at www.newworldrecords.org. writer. Mesmerised by Loren’s accounts of being Niall Black Guy Coletta Used by permission. Theatre in London. Recent productions include Ungeduld des Herzens (Beware of Pity), a kidnapped by elusive tribes and of discovering the source of the giant river, Popescu wrote The Arvo Pärt “Symphony No. 4” co-production with the Schaubühne, Berlin; SOUND ENGINEERS Encounter: Amazon Beaming Los Angeles Philharmonic conducted by Lionboy, its first show for young people and . He followed it with Samantha Broomfield, Laura Hammond, Amir Sherhan The New York Times Almost Adam Esa-Pekka Salonen families; and The Master and Margarita, A bestsellers and The Oasis. 2010 ECM Records GmbH Disappearing Number and The Elephant Vanishes. Popescu lives in California and is currently working on a new novel. ASSOCIATE LIGHTING DESIGNER PROJECTION SUPERVISOR The company is also known for its award-winning Arvo Pärt “Symphony No. 4” Creative Learning programme, which provides Laurence Russell Sam Hunt SIMON MCBURNEY Used by arrangement with European innovative opportunities for audience engagement. (Director and Performer) is American Distributors Company, U.S. a multi-Olivier Award-winning, Tony and SAG and Canadian agent for Universal Edition, WEBSITE: Complicite.org TECHNICAL STAGE MANAGER COMPANY STAGE MANAGER ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER Award-nominated actor, writer, director and one of publisher and copyright owner. FACEBOOK: /TheatredeComplicite Europe’s most original theatre makers. He is Sam Phillips Joanne Woolley Holly Gould TWITTER: @Complicite co-founder of Complicite, “...Britain’s most “Passing Cloud”, “Part 3: Violeta”, YOUTUBE: CompliciteCompany innovative theatre company” (New Statesman). His Written and performed by Stephan Micus INSTAGRAM: Complicite Theatre Ungeduld ASSISTANT PRODUCER ASSOCIATE PRODUCER PRODUCER 1997 ECM Records GmbH directing credits with Complicite include des Herzens (Beware of Pity), a co-production with Naomi Webb Poppy Keeling Judith Dimant THE ENCOUNTER: AMAZON BEAMING “Song for TJKD” composed by David the Schaubühne, Berlin, The Master and Margarita, Darling, published by Tasker Music. Used by BY PETRU POPESCU Shun-kin, A Disappearing Number, Measure for The Encounter: Amazon Beaming by Petru Popescu Measure, A Minute Too Late, The Elephant Vanishes, WITH THE VOICES OF permission of Licensor. All Rights Reserved. is available from Pushkin Press. Strange Poetry and The Street of Crocodiles. Other Romeo Corisepa Dreve, Claudia Hammond, David Farmer, Chris Frith, George Marshall, Noma McBurney, Iain McGilchrist, “Song for TKJD” (David Darling) directing credits include The Kid Stays in the Petru Popescu, Iris Friedman, Steven Rose, Marcus du Sautoy, Rebecca Spooner, Jess Worth and Nixiwaka Yawanawa. Performed by Ketil Bjørnstad The Encounter play text is available from Complicite’s Picture, All My Sons on Broadway and The & David Darling online shop at Complicite.org/shop.php Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui with Al Pacino in New 2010 ECM Records GmbH York. Opera credits include The Magic Flute and A Used by arrangement with ECM Records ARTISTIC COLLABORATORS Performances cover photo: Tristram Kenton Dog’s Heart, both produced by De Nederlandse David Annen, Simon Dormandy, Naomi Frederick, Victoria Gould, Richard Katz, Tim McMullan, Tom Morris and Saskia Reeves. and Gianmarco Bresadola. MAKE IT RAIN Opera and English National Opera in collaboration Written by Tom Waits, Kathleen Brennan with Complicite. © Jalma Music (ASCAP) APRIL 6-16, 2017 Used by permissions. All Right Reserved. He is a prolific film, television and radio actor and Bram Goldsmith Theater has appeared in movies, including The Theory of Everything, Magic in the Moonlight, Tinker Tailor Running Time: 1 hour 55 mins without an intermission. Soldier Spy, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, and most recently The Conjuring 2, Mission: A Complicite co-production with Edinburgh International Festival, the Barbican, London, Onassis Cultural Impossible - Rogue Nation and Allied. Centre – Athens, Schaubühne Berlin, Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne and Warwick Arts Centre.

PERFORMANCES MAGAZINE P5 About the Program

or ‘cacique’ of Marajaí, a village of – What? We only see the Mayoruna people deep in the Brazilian – You’ve been speaking for 45 minutes. Paul Crewes Rachel Fine Amazon, an hour’s flight west of Manaus – Good god. Artistic Director Managing Director version of the and four hours by boat up the river I got it all, whispers Gareth, my sound Solimões. designer, who looks even more sodden world we want Lourival, according to local protocol, than I do in the Amazonian heat, talks to us as part of our welcome into unplugging the totem. to see... the village - and has been doing so I look round the room. Silence. I am for the best part of an hour. The hut is not sure how it has gone down. In A SPACE FOR ARTS EDUCATION crammed with people and sitting between English the word rehearsal derives When making a piece of theatre I am, us all like some 21st century totem is from ‘hearse’ which means to rake frequently, if not most of the time, in a binaural head, the microphone that over. To prepare the ground. And one PRESENTS the dark. I truly do not know where we records in so called ‘3D’. way for me to prepare has always been will end up. Paul Heritage, head of People’s Palace to perform or improvise a show I am – We’re going to shut the door now and Projects, who has lived for more than 20 making to those who have never heard we’ll open it again in 20 minutes. Is years in Brazil, translates as Lourival it before. Because the story is not the that ok? winds down... show. It is not even the performance – Yep, I guess. – So you have come all this way and that is the show. The show is made in THE ART OF THE – Have you ever sat in total silence? In I have one question... Lourival leans the minds of the audience. I want to the dark? forward, looking me in the eye. know what they see. What they hear. I – I’ll be fine. – Why are you here? look at Lourival. He smiles. SMALL ENSEMBLE As a result of spending 63 days in I nervously lick the wet salt off my – We are moved by your story, he says. silence on a Vipassana retreat, Yuval upper lip, and sweat stings my eyes as Your story about this man who was lost, Noah Harari, the acclaimed author of everyone turns towards me. but who survived. Your story is about IN CLASSICAL MUSIC AND JAZZ Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, – I think you need to reply, says Paul. many people, but it is also about us, the proclaimed it the ideal tool with which The sounds of the forest and the village Mayoruna. And it tells us that others to scientifically observe his own become extremely loud all of a sudden. I in this world know of the Mayoruna mind. He came to realise he had no clear my throat. people. You tell the world that we have idea who he really was and that the The slight rising panic makes me realise survived. Many have perished. We Musicians Program fictional story in his head, and the the noise I am now hearing is the sound have survived. But whether we will all GUITAR connection between that and reality, of fluids circulating in my head. And survive... that is another matter. Benjamin Farahi The program will include works was extremely tenuous. there is a high-pitched hiss caused He laughs. by Handel and Mozart and several – Ok well... if you freak out then push by spontaneous firings of the auditory – So is it funny? GUITAR, BASS, DRUMS this button and we’ll open the door. nerve. How long have I been sitting here – What? Spencer Lemann jazz pieces, including an original The vast door to the anechoic in darkness? I squeeze my phone. 5 – Your performance. composition by one of our students, chamber, which is, as the name minutes. I thought it was at least half an My son examines me. I glance at him SAX suggests, a room without echoes, at hour. sideways. Draw in my breath. Dylan Ollivier Spencer Lemann, called the Building Research Establishment – Where are you going? The door suddenly creaks open and I “Perspective Variations.” (BRE) in Watford, closes definitively – To work on my show... am out in the Watford sunlight again, PIANO behind me. – What are you doing? blinking. What greets me I don’t expect. Kaitlin Webster-Zuber The concrete walls are so thick no – Um... sitting in a dark silent room in It shocks me. It is a roar. So loud I sound from the outside world enters Watford. want to block my ears. Traffic, voices, PIANO Emily Webster- Zuber your ear canals and the vast foam – Why? machinery, planes... industrial, all wedges that cover the walls absorb – To see what it’s like. encompassing, unstoppable. The shock FACULTY sound to such an extent that a clap I look at my son. He is four. I’m not sure is that most of the time, I do not hear it Jamey Tate and becomes a tap. he buys this answer. because our auditory system blocks out Miori Sugiyama I am in total darkness. And total – When is Christmas? our conscious mind. Our ears, without silence. I don’t mean the silence of – A long time. Several months. When it us asking, form a filter and help to three in the morning at home, or even is winter, when it will be cold again. create a ‘normal’ reality, but one in the silence of the remotest place on – It was cold today. which we hear ‘selectively’. As with our earth, I mean total silence. – Yes, ok, but not very cold. ears, so it is with all our senses. Our My breathing sounds like a set – Yes it was. I was cold. eyes, our sense of smell, every way in WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19, 8PM of bellows; my heartbeat like an – You’re right, it was cold. which we perceive the world creates a Lovelace Studio Theater arrhythmic drum machine. – How long is several months? gap between what is actually happening – Why am I here? I mutter something about moons and and the story we make of it. We see only Running Time: 1 hour with no intermission. It is 40°C, my clothes are already loads of sleeps. what we want to see... sodden although we have only been Maybe this high-pitched hiss generated The technician looks at me inquiringly. here an hour. Or have we? I’ve lost by my auditory nerves is something – How was it? track of time and I have no battery on more sinister. I should get my ears – Disorientating. GRoW @ The Wallis education and outreach programs, including Young Artists Project, School Partners, and Community my phone. In fact I don’t know why I checked for tinnitus when I get out of – And how did that feel? Partners, are made possible by the generous support of GRoW Annenberg Foundation, Actors’ Equity Foundation, Dwight Stuart have a phone at all given there is no here. – Familiar. Youth Fund, Johnny Carson Foundation, Friars Charitable Foundation, The Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation, Lori and signal here. We are sitting in the house - How much longer? Robert Goodman/ Resmark, GRoW Annenberg Foundation / Regina and Gregory Annenberg Weingarten, In Memory of Morris of Lourival Mayoruna, the headman – 45 minutes. – SIMON MCBURNEY Hazan, Viceroy L’Ermitage Beverly Hills, Leon Lowenstein Foundation, Meeghan and Michael Nemeroff , In Memory of Benjamin Norton, Arline and Buddy Pepp, The Wasserman Foundation & Wells Fargo.

P6 PERFORMANCES MAGAZINE