The magic of live theatre is that it’s different every night… right? At least it can be. Or maybe should be. But how often is it, really? Given that the art form is constitutively premised on recreating itself in the moment every night, why do so many shows feel frozen, appearing to hope for as few surprises as possible?
Engaging with the spontaneity afforded by liveness, many experimental theatremakers devise radical concepts that explore the medium’s potential, forcing it to deliver upon its promise of nightly difference. Long at the vanguard of such innovations, acclaimed English artist Tim Crouch has spent much of his career playfully interrogating theatrical conventions. Presented as part of the Luminato Festival in partnership with TO Live, the new stint of his landmark piece An Oak Tree (co-directed with Karl James and Andy Smith) currently running at the Jane Mallett Theatre marks the 20th anniversary of its Edinburgh Fringe premiere.
Across those two decades, Crouch has appeared onstage with a different co-star at every performance (now upwards of 400), each time inviting a working actor to join him without any prior knowledge of what they’ll be expected to say and do. The performers receive lines from Crouch, sometimes reading from a clipboard, sometimes listening via headphones, and sometimes simply repeating exactly what he says.
Nested within that conceptual framing, the main story follows a grieving father confronting the stage hypnotist (Crouch) who accidentally killed his daughter in a collision by a roadside oak tree. This narrative is deftly written as a meditation on mourning, remorse, and the difficulty of accepting change; on its own, however, the plot may not have seemed especially groundbreaking were it not surrounded by metatheatrical pyrotechnics.
Nonetheless, this material is well-suited as a vehicle for Crouch’s larger exploration of the nature of performance as a site of transformation. After all, an actor following a script — entering an altered state of being and following the cues given by someone with more creative authority over the outcome — is its own kind of hypnotism. Crouch invites his temporary collaborator and the audience to succumb to the trance, to willingly accept the artist’s capacity to control what we see, even when we know we’re seeing something else entirely.
Part of the draw of this show is the roster of familiar faces from Canadian theatre and television lined up to play the father (including Daniel MacIvor, Jean Yoon, Qasim Khan, and Mark McKinney), none of whom are publicly attached to a specific date. There’s no way of anticipating who you’ll see at whichever performance you attend, which may incentivize some to catch multiple showings and try their luck at seeing someone in particular. Luminato encourages this repetitious viewing, offering a 25 per cent discount if you buy tickets to two different performances.
On opening night, the role was played by Karen Robinson (these days best known for roles on Schitt’s Creek and Law & Order: Toronto, though she also brings robust stage experience to the table). She admirably followed along and took directions, exuding a consistent veneer of stoic focus, with occasional pops of amusement at the unpredictability. Alternating between speaking as herself and as the father — those switches frequently happening mid-conversation, always scripted by Crouch — she made little to no vocal distinction between these two figures. It evidently took her a second to realize who she’s supposed to be in each given instance; I shared her momentary disorientation.
Hinging the show on a fascinating premise that’s capable of fueling book-length analyses, Crouch’s prime objective appears to be testing the limits of theatrical representation, improvisation, and authorship. While I’m usually a sucker for exactly those types of experiments, I ultimately found An Oak Tree a bit underwhelming. Though there’s a partial thrill at seeing something so unconventional and trying to piece together where it’s all heading as it plays out, I personally found a lot more to enjoy while discussing it with a friend after the fact — which was riveting — than I did while seated in the auditorium. A lot of momentum is lost each time Crouch whispers lines to his scene partner. It took a long time for Robinson to receive and speak each passage, clipping the wings of her line deliveries for what could have otherwise been swift dialogue and soaring monologues.
There’s no denying that the show’s construction is all very deliberate. Crouch has had more than enough time to finesse the concept if this weren’t exactly how he wanted it. But it seems a missed opportunity, establishing a premise that foregrounds variability without embracing the full chaotic force of each unique variable. I’m inclined to compare this to Parlous Theatre’s Insert Clown Here. That show (which I saw thrice!) similarly made an unprepared actor stumble their way through a drama with a preordained plot. The difference was that the newly-joined participant needed to come up with all of their own lines on the spot, flexing their improv skills. By contrast, Crouch’s strict imposition of his text curbs the potential for variation, often impeding both figures’ responsiveness to the stimuli of the moment.
I was both curious and skeptical that a second viewing of An Oak Tree would feel overly different from what I’d seen on opening night….
So I went back to catch another Oak Tree the next day.
In previous cases of critics basing their reviews on multiple viewings of a show that’s predicated on night-to-night variability, that revisitation confirmed the wild unpredictability and advertised uniqueness of each discrete performance. My second viewing of An Oak Tree had the opposite effect; it corroborated the constancy, and perhaps even the rigidity, of the production’s scaffolding.
On Sunday’s matinee, the father was played by Rebecca Henderson (of Russian Doll and Star Wars: The Acolyte fame). She followed the exact same beats and spoke the same words as Robinson had the night before, as prompted by Crouch. The most perceptible difference was that Henderson was slightly quicker at locating the emotional texture in the lines. Her adept cold reading allowed her to pepper the text with more outwardly presented intensity. At the end of one particularly heartrending monologue, she was visibly shedding tears, at which point Crouch handed her a tissue. That hadn’t happened the previous evening, and thus offered a rare moment of spontaneity and human connection that felt absent from the rest of the production.
So, is An Oak Tree worth seeing twice? I’m not so convinced. If fandom motivates you to do everything in your power to see a specific performer, that’s your prerogative, but you’re unlikely to witness enough variation to appreciate it for variability’s sake alone. One viewing is enough to grasp the intriguing mechanisms behind the complex show, but this master of suggestion might not leave you fully entranced.
An Oak Tree runs at the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts until June 22. Tickets are available here.
Intermission reviews are independent and unrelated to Intermission’s partnered content. Learn more about Intermission’s partnership model here.
WRITTEN BY
Ryan Borochovitz
Ryan Borochovitz (he/him) is a Toronto-based dramaturg, director, playwright, and academic. He is currently a PhD Candidate in the Centre for Drama, Theatre, and Performance Studies at the University of Toronto, and holds an MA in Theatre Theory and Dramaturgy from the University of Ottawa. He is the founding artistic director of the (essentially defunct) independent production company, Sad Ibsen Theatre. He currently serves as the co-artistic producer – former literary manager – of Cup of Hemlock Theatre, for whom he produces and occasionally hosts the theatre enthusiasm podcast, The Cup.
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