Complicité Theatre Company

This Drama and Theatre A-Level section explores the practitioner Complicité Theatre Company. Complicité is a renowned British theatre company, founded in 1983 by director Simon McBurney. Known for its innovative use of physical theatre, multimedia, and devised work, the company is committed to creating collaborative, visually rich, and emotionally engaging performances that challenge traditional theatre forms. Complicité’s work often explores complex narratives and themes through a highly physical, visual, and immersive style, using technology, movement, and sound to engage the audience in a sensory experience.

Key Concepts and Ideas

Devised Theatre:

• Complicité is known for devised theatre, which means that their productions are created collaboratively, often without a traditional script. In a devised process, the director and performers work together to develop the content of the performance, allowing for a more organic and spontaneous creation of theatre.
• This approach encourages creativity and experimentation, as the company develops material through improvisation, workshops, and collaboration. The process is often actor-driven, with performers contributing ideas, movement sequences, and text to the final performance.

Physical Theatre and Visual Storytelling:

• Physicality is central to Complicité’s work. The company uses the actors’ bodies to convey complex ideas and emotions, often exploring the relationship between movement and meaning.
• Visual storytelling is a hallmark of their productions. The company integrates movement, gestures, and non-verbal communication to create narratives and explore abstract concepts, allowing them to tell stories that go beyond words.
• Physicality in their work often blurs the lines between theatre and dance, and movement is used to enhance or transform the meaning of the text.

Multimedia and Technology:

• One of the defining features of Complicité’s work is its use of multimedia and technology to create immersive environments and add layers of meaning to the performance. They often incorporate:
• Video projections and film: These may be used to extend the narrative, add symbolism, or depict scenes that are difficult to represent through traditional theatre techniques.
• Sound design: Complicité’s productions often have intricate soundscapes, with sound being used to create atmosphere, highlight themes, or enhance moments of physicality.
• Live recording and manipulation: In some productions, the live performance is accompanied by real-time video or sound manipulation, providing a dynamic, interactive element that responds to the actors’ actions on stage.

Non-Naturalistic Staging:

• Complicité often employs non-naturalistic staging, using symbolic and abstract elements to suggest meaning rather than realistic settings. This approach allows them to create worlds that are flexible, adaptable, and open to interpretation.
• They frequently make use of minimalist sets, relying on lighting, sound, and projections to transform the space and create a sense of time and place.
• The use of space and timing is key in their work, with the actors’ movements, staging, and multimedia elements combining to form a rich, layered experience for the audience.

Themes and Narrative:

• Complicité’s work often engages with complex, intellectual themes, such as identity, memory, history, and human relationships. Their productions do not always follow a traditional narrative structure and may feature fragmented storytelling, where meaning is created through associations, images, and themes rather than a linear plot.
• The company’s works can also explore political and social issues, challenging the audience to reflect on contemporary life and human experience. Their productions encourage deep engagement with the themes, often leaving the audience to form their own interpretations.

Audience Engagement and Immersion:

• Complicité often seeks to engage the audience directly, creating a sense of immersion and involvement in the production. This is achieved through:
• Breaking the fourth wall: The performers might interact with the audience, inviting them into the performance or directly addressing them to make them aware of the theatrical nature of the production.
• Sensory stimulation: Through multimedia elements, physical theatre, and sound design, the audience’s senses are fully engaged, creating an immersive experience where the audience is not just passive, but actively involved in the emotional and intellectual journey of the performance.

Global Influences

• Complicité’s work draws on a wide range of influences from global theatre traditions, including physical theatre, puppetry, Japanese Noh theatre, and Commedia dell’Arte. These influences blend with contemporary techniques and technologies to create a distinctive and innovative style of theatre.
• Their international collaborations and wide-reaching influence have made them a significant force in world theatre, with productions often tackling universal themes through a cross-cultural lens.

Key Works

A Disappearing Number (2007):

• A Disappearing Number is a production inspired by the story of the collaboration between mathematicians Srinivasa Ramanujan and G.H. Hardy. The play explores themes of mathematics, the infinite, culture, and identity.
• The production blends physical theatre with mathematical theory, using multimedia projections and abstract movement to depict the complex ideas of mathematics and the personal stories of the characters. The work creates a unique theatrical experience by combining intellectual themes with emotional depth.

The Master and Margarita (2011):

• This production, based on the novel by Mikhail Bulgakov, combines theatrical imagery, multimedia, and physical theatre to create a surreal, dream-like world. The play explores themes of power, freedom, and the supernatural.
• The adaptation of Bulgakov’s complex narrative into a dynamic theatrical experience involved visual projections and soundscapes to create the fantastical elements of the story, allowing for a performance that is both visually arresting and intellectually stimulating.

The Encounter (2015):

• The Encounter is a solo performance by Simon McBurney, based on the book Amazon Beaming by Petru Popescu. The production tells the story of a man’s journey through the Amazon rainforest and his encounter with an indigenous tribe.
• The play is highly immersive, with McBurney using sound design and recorded voice to create a highly sensory experience for the audience. The production explores themes of isolation, identity, and the encounter between Western civilisation and indigenous cultures.

Can I Live? (2021):

• An urgent question and an invitation offered by Can I Live?: a vital new digital performance about the climate catastrophe conceived, written and performed by Fehinti Balogun who shares his personal journey into the biggest challenge of our times. Weaving his story with spoken word, rap, theatre, animation and the scientific facts, Fehinti charts a course through the fundamental issues underpinning the emergency, identifying the intimate relationship between the environmental crisis & the global struggle for social justice, and sharing how, as a young Black British man, he has found his place in the climate movement. 
• In the face of a sense of helplessness about the climate catastrophe, Can I Live? is an outstretched hand, inviting audiences to recognise they are not alone – and that through understanding the issues and connecting with the many powerful activists around the globe driving change, we can find a sense of hope for the future.

Figures in Extinction (2022):

• A co-production between Nederlands Dans Theater and Complicité.
• A cross-continent collaboration between Simon McBurney and choreographer Crystal Pite. For the past four years, they have weaved their hopes and fears for our current moment into this urgent dance trilogy. 
• We are living in an age of extinction: of animals, of language, of our connection with nature and of age-old ways of knowing.
• The first work in this urgent dance trilogy explores this disconnection from the natural world; a study of the species and environments we have lost and are losing
• The second work in the triptych draws from a rich and surprising array of source materials, from lectures on the neuroscience of the brain to the cacophonous clatter of Instagram influencers.
• The third work is a meditation on grief, and our relationship with the dead.

Drive Your Plow Over The Bones of the Dead (2022):

• Based on Nobel Prize winning author Olga Tokarczuk’s novel of the same name, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead is a new work for theatre conceived and directed by Simon McBurney, with revival co-direction & original additional direction by Kirsty Housley. Tokarczuk’s controversial, violent, genre defying novel; part thriller, part comedy, and part blistering poetic manifesto for the rights of animals and the environment – caused an uproar in its native Poland upon publication.
• In the depths of winter, in a small community on a remote Polish mountainside near the Czech-Polish border, men from the local hunting club are dying in mysterious circumstances and Janina Duszejko – an eccentric older local woman, ex-engineer, environmentalist, devoted astrologer and enthusiastic translator of William Blake – has her suspicions. She has been watching the animals with whom the community share their isolated, rural home, and she believes they are acting strangely…
• A Complicité co-production with Barbican London, Belgrade Theatre Coventry, Bristol Old Vic, Comédie de Genève, Holland Festival, Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg, L’Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe, The Lowry, The National Theatre of Iceland, Oxford Playhouse, Ruhrfestspiele Recklinghausen and Theatre Royal Plymouth.

Mnemonic (2024):

• mnemonic / ni’monik / adj. 1. assisting or intended to assist memory; 2. of memory
• A body is found in the ice, and a woman is looking for her father while a man searches for his lost lover.
• This story is as much about origins as it is about memory and remembering what is lost. Mnemonic asks: what is our place in the natural world? How have human relationships with the environment shaped patterns of migration? Who are we, and where do we come from?

Theatrical Techniques and Approaches

Multisensory Experience:

• Complicité often creates performances that engage the audience on a sensory level, using sound, light, projections, and physicality to form an immersive environment. This engagement extends beyond intellectual stimulation, encouraging the audience to experience the narrative through multiple sensory channels.

Minimalist Staging:

• The company often employs minimalist set designs that rely on projections and lighting to transform the performance space. This creates a sense of flexibility, with the space evolving throughout the performance as new elements are introduced, allowing the audience to focus more on the actors' physicality and the thematic content.

Fragmented Storytelling:

• Complicité’s productions do not always follow linear storytelling. Instead, they often use fragmented narratives that unfold in unexpected ways, requiring the audience to actively piece together the story. This non-traditional narrative structure can create a more intellectual engagement with the themes, as the audience is invited to interpret the play for themselves.

Influence and Legacy

• Complicité has influenced many other theatre companies and practitioners, particularly in the areas of physical theatre, multimedia integration, and devised work. The company’s approach to non-verbal storytelling and interactive performance has shaped contemporary theatre practices, particularly in the UK and internationally.
• The company’s emphasis on collaboration and innovation has inspired a generation of theatre-makers to experiment with new forms of theatre that blur the boundaries between different mediums and disciplines.

International Reach, Touring and Collaboration

Complicité is not solely a British theatre company operating at home; it is a major international touring company, bringing its work to audiences around the world.  Their model often involves co-productions, partnerships, and cross-cultural collaborations, which means their work must be adaptable to different venues, cultural contexts, and audience expectations.
Because of this international dimension, Complicité’s work often engages with global issues, and their aesthetic must travel: their visual, sonic, and physical language tend to communicate across cultural and linguistic boundaries. In studying them, students should consider how performances change (or stay coherent) when taken across contexts, and how universality and specificity are balanced.

Ethos, Mission and Engagement

Complicité defines itself through a spirit of “collaborative curiosity, connectivity and internationalism,” this has expanded to include a deep commitment to environmental and climate action. The company views theatre as a space for connection; not only between actors, texts, and audiences, but also between humans and the planet we inhabit. This ecological awareness shapes both their artistic practice and their organisational choices.
Beyond productions, Complicité actively explores the role of the arts in responding to the climate crisis through projects such as Can I Live? and Figures in Extinction, which merge performance with activism and science. They also lead creative engagement and sustainability initiatives that support artists in developing environmentally responsible practices. Complicité is not simply a performance company, but a cultural organisation using theatre to inspire awareness, care, and collective action for a sustainable future.

Awards, Recognition and Influence

To understand Complicité’s position in theatre, it helps to know that they are widely recognised and awarded. They’ve won more than 50 major theatre awards globally and have performed in over 40 countries.  Their status helps explain why their methods and productions are studied and emulated: they are seen as leading voices in contemporary devised, physical, and multimedia theatre.
Their influence also extends in how they are referenced in critical and academic discussions; for example, practices of integrating text, movement, image, and sound; or in how theatre companies build reputations through touring and international collaboration.

Summary

Complicité Theatre Company’s commitment to collaborative, multimedia-driven, and highly physical theatre has established it as one of the most influential theatre companies in the UK and beyond. Through their use of devised theatre, technology, and multisensory storytelling, they have created a distinctive and innovative style of theatre that pushes the boundaries of what is possible on stage. The company continues to challenge conventions and inspire new ways of thinking about theatre and performance.