The Toronto Theatre Review: Tim Crouch’s An Oak Tree
By Ross
With a “good luck, you’re going to be great,” the acclaimed English theatre creator Tim Crouch (My Arm; ENGLAND) ushers this unique piece of spontaneous but tightly scripted performance forward into our laps, as he asks us to picture ourselves as a slightly intoxicated pub crowd who are looking forward to being dazzled by a hypnotist act. It’s a compelling construct; to dive into a dimension with abstract constructs, and to bring up a different co-star at every performance. The plan is to have this willing participant join him onstage to perform the two-handed play, An Oak Tree, live on stage without the secondary actor ever looking at or knowing anything about the script. It’s a wildly original stint that started two decades ago at the Edinburgh Fringe and is now being presented as part of the Luminato Festival, in partnership with TO Live at the Jane Mallett Theatre.
I had heard compelling commentary about this unique conceptual performance, and although I knew very little about Crouch and the show, I left my apartment as spontaneously as this show is, jumping on the TTC (Toronto’s subway) and shotting down to the theatre to purchase a last minute ticket for the show’s last performance. It was that extremely hot Sunday afternoon in June, and the idea of spending 80 minutes inside a nice cool theatre felt like a solid investment, so I decided, spur of the moment, to go. I was curious already, as I had to decline some press tickets for an earlier performance, as I wasn’t going to be in town. But the set-up felt right, deciding 30 minutes before the show started, to get myself downtown and run in to see what the fuss was all about.
There is a great debate about a show that basically unfolds before us with an unrehearsed active participant. The story that is being told has weight, and a power to it, when a grieving father goes on stage, spontaneously, to somehow confront the hypnotist, performed by Crouch, who had, not too long ago, accidentally killed his daughter in a collision that took place by an oak tree. And the whole unpacking is centered around the play’s unique structure and this convergence. Will it work and keep us engaged? Would it be interesting to see it numerous times, as the list of unscheduled visiting co-stars is quite compelling? Would I gain a different perspective with each viewing? I must admit I was fascinated and compelled, to watch Crouch, as directed by Crouch, Karl James, and Andy Smith, with music by Peter Gill, and piano by Simon Crane, lead his fellow unknowing co-star through the paces of an emotionally raw show. Would we feel the intensity of the collision of two men dealing with grief and shame, in a formulate that one actor feeding the other their lines, either with a script on a clipboard, through headphones whispered silently in the back, or by simple telling them to repeat (or not repeat) exactly, word for word, what he tells them to say. This is some high-level conceptualism and performance art, and it could either really work, or grind itself down into some sort of stalled oblivion.
There have been upwards of 400 different co-stars over these two decades that Crouch has been presenting this formulation, but on that last performance Sunday matinee, I wouldn’t have the opportunity to debate in my mind what a second viewing would be like, only hypothetically. This was the event, and as it got started, the engagement and energy were clear and electric. Our special guest that day was a very game actor who I both didn’t know and didn’t catch their name, but as they bounced from seat to hypnotized seat, narrowing in our view of the main contestant, I was definitely pulled in by their compelling altering perspectives. They were playful and energized at first, tuned into the instructions and playing along with clever deliverance, but, unfortunately, I must say, the magic, at least for me, didn’t last.
The story spins itself around a framing of mourning and guilt, layered with shame and sorrow. Crouch does a solid job unpacking the transformational process, but as it moves into the complexities of awareness and grief, the formula became its own stumbling block, slowing down the process with far too many moments when instructions are being fed to the very game co-conspiritor through their headphones from an unmic’d Crouch in the back of the theatre stage. The stalling space gave us too many opportunities to disengage and have our non-hypnotized brain wander off into our own personal horizon. I was never really fully entranced by the time-shifting dynamic, nor in the story, which has all the elements of deep sadness within its soundtrack of street noises, but without the urgency and force of a devastating collision.
An Oak Tree didn’t add up to much for me on that hot Sunday afternoon. I left thinking very little about the tragedy I had just heard about, nor was I contemplating the unconventional way it was told. I thought the unknowing participant was as brave as one could be, to give themselves over to the whispering Crouch and try their best to deliver. The writing seemed to move the other player far more than it did me, even when the monologues delivered carry a weight that is heavy with sorrow and despair. Maybe a second viewing would have enriched the experience, but for me, I left unenlightened. I appreciated his act of compassion and care for the other and for the story that unfolded before us, but I remain unconvinced and unmoved, as played out here on stage at the Luminato Festival.
