British actor Tim Crouch first performed An Oak Treeat the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2005. It was a success there and went on to become not just a UK but an international hit, with sold-out runs in New York, Moscow, Berlin, Melbourne and other cities. All told, Crouch has performed the show nearly 300 times -- with an equal number of actors (both male and female) assisting him.
Because Crouch believes that "no two theater performances should ever be the same...That must be the theatre's rubric -- it is live," he appears on stage with a different actor every night. The actor has neither seen the script nor rehearsed his part. He just shows up, goes on stage and "acts," though his words have been scripted by Crouch, who occasionally hands him a page or two of text and/or whispers a few instructions.
The result is a fiendishly clever mixture of improv, performance art and confrontational drama (aided by an all-important sound system).
An Oak Tree keeps darting in and out of reality and various states of being, with Crouch serving as both narrator and participant. First he pretends to be a hypnotist putting on a show at a pub, with chairs substituting as his subjects. His patter is tongue in cheek, satirical -- until he confronts The Actor who, on the night I caught the show, was Peter Gallagher. Crouch asks him to make believe he's the father of a young girl who was hit by a car and killed...by a driver who turns out to be himself (as person, not hypnotist). The Actor is then instructed to play not only himself but his wife and even his daughter, with Crouch alternating between cruelty, compassion and mortification while relating to The Actor -- who also reacts, intuitively, in various impromptu, deeply-felt ways.
It's all very strange, daunting and challenging, with moments of horror and sadness brightened by bits of humor and music.
Crouch has come up with a truly original piece of theater, one which asks the audience to make as many choices as the actors. Crouch is a charismatic and compelling figure on stage, but Gallagher more than held his own with him.
