An Oak Tree - Belvoir Downstairs
Gimmick or genius? The cast changes each night, half of the actors never see the script before setting foot on stage - welcome to Tim Crouch's An Oak Tree
By Alexandra Coghlan
"Whenever you have a good story, you want to tell it. That should be the bottom line for any playwright." For English author Tim Crouch this desire has taken some unusual - not to say extreme - forms over the years. His play, My Arm, famously involves taking objects from his audience - a bottle of water, a packet of cigarettes - and using them as ‘characters'. Crouch's An Oak Tree opens in Sydney this week, and presents another unorthodox theatrical challenge to its performers.
The show is a two-hander about two men dealing very differently with the death of a girl: the child's father, and a hypnotist responsible for her accidental death in a car crash. While the Hypnotist is played by a single actor throughout the show's run, the role of the Father is taken by a different actor each night, whose only advance knowledge of the play is a single-page document advising them of the basic scenario.
Despite its strong concept, Crouch is keen to keep the focus very much on the story itself. "This is not about skin-of-your-teeth theatre; it's about telling a story. The story is better told with someone in the middle who doesn't know from moment to moment where they are going."
"I was an actor for many years and on a very simplistic level my plays are a response to the frustrations I felt, and an attempt to explore alternatives. With An Oak Tree it was important for me to explore the live moment in theatre. There are always choices A and B, and in a conventional play people are encouraged to forget that B ever existed. In An Oak Tree however you are reminded constantly. It's about encouraging an audience to be aware of their activity, of their role."
See an Oak Tree at the Belvoir Downstairs from 16 July - 10. Aug.
