list.co.uk/festival Simon McBurney | FESTIVAL THEATRE
SOUND AND VISION
As he prepares to bring his solo show with Complicite to the Edinburgh
International Festival, Simon McBurney waxes lyrical with our theatre editor
Gareth K Vile about time and interconnection
Y ou might recognise Simon McBurney from Rev, Utopia and The Theory of Everything. But despite his extensive i lmography, 2015 will mark the award-winning actor, writer and director’s i rst appearance at the Edinburgh International Festival.
In a landmark year for the EIF – in which new director Fergus Linehan offers up a thrilling theatre programme – McBurney’s The Encounter is a highlight of its new, earlier opening weekend. McBurney is the co-founder and director of Complicite (formerly known as Théâtre de Complicité). Over the last three decades, their use of movement and technology, as well as a philosophical understanding of complex themes, has made them a force to be reckoned with on the British arts scene, with major productions including The Master and Margarita, A Disappearing Number and The Elephant Vanishes.
The Encounter, McBurney’s highly anticipated Festival debut, is a one-man play based on the novel Amazon Beaming by Petru Popescu, which tells the story of Loren McIntyre, a photographer who i nds himself lost among the remote people of the Amazonian Javari Valley in 1969. The show will feature binaural technology, which produces 3D sound, or sound as our ears are naturally meant to hear it, helping to create a vivid and intimate atmosphere. When we chatted with McBurney to discuss his latest production, we caught him in a philosophical mood. Here, he muses about creating an adaptation and the nature of time itself.
6–13 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 75
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