ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the theatrical undercurrents that work to create the electric air in a virtual dimension in Complicité’s The Encounter. In addition to an interview with the single actor, Simon McBurney, 48 short interviews were conducted with audience members at the New York, London and Adelaide productions between 2016 and 2018. In this one-person production, and given the titular nature of the performance, the encounter motif was central to the conversation. Actor–audience encounters with each other are described by Simon McBurney and the interviewed audience members. Encounters also occurred between actor and narrative and audience and narrative. Due to the intimacy created through the use of technology in this production, the relationship between actor and audience member changed significantly on both sides of the footlights. Actor’s and audience’s double consciousness and the understanding of presence is also recontextualised working on many different levels and creating a different experience of the electric air. The most noticeable differences in the actor–audience conversations in The Encounter are that they occur in a virtual atmosphere in what is posited by audience members as a “theatre of the mind.” The chapter concludes with a discussion of the experience of the theatre of the mind for one audience member that was visually impaired.
