Complicité: Key Methodologies and Practitioner Guide
This guide provides an overview of the theatre company Complicité and its
key methodologies. It is designed to support Edexcel A Level Drama and
Theatre Studies Component 3, particularly for students exploring how
Complicité’s style could influence the staging of set texts such as Hedda
Gabler.
Who are Complicité?
Complicité is a British theatre company founded in 1983 by Simon McBurney,
Annabel Arden, Marcello Magni, and Fiona Gordon. The company is
internationally recognised for creating visually inventive and highly physical
theatre that blends movement, sound, storytelling, multimedia, and
ensemble performance.
Complicité’s productions often move beyond realism, instead focusing on
atmosphere, symbolism, emotional truth, and imaginative theatrical
storytelling.
Core Artistic Principles
Collaboration and ensemble work
Physical storytelling
Use of visual metaphor
Transformation of space and objects
Blending realism with imagination
Use of sound and atmosphere
The actor as storyteller
Exploration of memory, psychology, and inner worlds
Key Methodologies
1. Ensemble Performance
Complicité places enormous emphasis on ensemble work. Actors collaborate
closely to create movement, space, transitions, and atmosphere. The
ensemble often functions as a collective storytelling force rather than simply
individual characters.
In rehearsal, actors frequently devise sequences together and physically
create environments using their bodies.
2. Physical Theatre
Movement is central to Complicité’s work. Actors communicate emotion,
relationships, and ideas through physicality as much as dialogue. Gesture,
rhythm, posture, and choreographed movement are carefully developed.
This physical storytelling often reveals characters’ inner emotional states.
3. Visual Metaphor
Complicité frequently uses symbolic imagery to communicate themes and
emotions. Objects, movement, lighting, or staging may represent
psychological ideas rather than realistic settings.
For example, a moving wall might symbolise emotional pressure or
entrapment.
4. Transformation of Space
Sets are often fluid and imaginative rather than fully realistic. Actors may
transform simple objects into multiple locations or environments. The stage
space evolves continuously throughout the performance.
5. Multimedia and Sound
Complicité productions often use projection, recorded sound, live sound
effects, music, and layered soundscapes to create atmosphere and emotional
depth.
Sound is frequently psychological rather than purely realistic.
6. Storytelling and Narrative
Actors are often storytellers as well as characters. Performers may narrate
events directly to the audience, switch roles, or shift between realism and
theatricality.
7. Exploring Inner Worlds
Many Complicité productions explore memory, dreams, trauma, repression,
and psychological experience. The company often stages emotional or
mental states physically through movement, sound, or ensemble work.
Key Rehearsal Techniques
Improvisation and devising
Movement workshops
Collaborative experimentation
Exploration through imagery and metaphor
Physical ensemble exercises
Developing rhythm and pace through movement
Using objects symbolically
How These Methodologies Could Apply to Hedda Gabler
The ensemble could physically create Hedda’s house to represent
confinement.
Movement motifs could reflect Hedda’s emotional repression.
Lighting and sound could externalise Hedda’s psychological state.
The manuscript could become a symbolic object handled ceremonially by
the ensemble.
Transitions could flow continuously without blackouts to maintain
emotional tension.
Judge Brack could appear as an omnipresent observer emerging from the
ensemble.
Important Productions to Reference
The Encounter (2015)
A solo performance using binaural sound technology to immerse the
audience psychologically and emotionally.
Mnemonic (1999)
Explores memory, identity, and human connection through fragmented
storytelling and ensemble movement.
A Disappearing Number (2007)
Blends mathematics, relationships, movement, projection, and symbolism in
a non-linear structure.
The Master and Margarita (2011)
Combines surreal imagery, physical theatre, and ensemble storytelling.
Useful References and Further Reading
Complicité Official Website – [Link]
Simon McBurney interviews and TED Talks discussing theatrical
storytelling
National Theatre and Digital Theatre recordings/interviews
Edexcel Drama and Theatre Specification
Practitioner textbooks such as ‘The Frantic Assembly Book of Devising
Theatre’ can also support physical theatre understanding, although
Frantic Assembly is a different company.
Key Takeaway
Complicité encourages theatre-makers to move beyond realism and use the
full theatrical language of movement, sound, symbolism, design, and
ensemble storytelling to communicate emotional truth. This makes the
company an exciting practitioner choice for texts that explore psychology,
repression, memory, and power dynamics.