Review: An Oak Tree (The Other Palace)

Review by Sam Waite

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Two decades on from its premiere, Tim Crouch’s An Oak Tree benefits from its being set in no particular time, and its backstory having taken place on whichever street you might imagine. Crouch himself has taken part in every performance of the show, while his approach to these performances means that he has amassed hundreds of co-stars. By his own account, the material will never be performed, “exactly how I want it – and thank God for that,” an attitude which allows his text to be re-mounted again and again, including this latest run at The Other Palace.

An Oak Tree is simultaneously a work of fiction and an acting exercise, with Crouch appearing both as an unnamed stage hypnotist and as himself. His co-star for each performance, having neither seen the play performed nor read the script beforehand, is guided in real time through their character, a grieving father whose life was irreparably changed three months earlier by the hypnotist. The audience are not themselves, but another audience to whom this hypnotist is performing, and the guest star of each performance is understood to have volunteered from among them, seeking answers for questions too difficult to ask.

This time around, the daunting task of opening the run went to Death Valley’s Gwyneth Keyworth, who will be followed by an eclectic group including Rosalie Craig, Rhashan Stone, Tanya Reynolds, Hammed Animashaun, Bessie Carter, and Goerge Fouracres. Keyworth turned in a wonderful performance, bringing touches of herself to the character while gradually embedding herself in the role of a middle-aged, deeply-wounded father. Unfortunately, captivating though she was, it feels improper to focus too heavily on Crouch’s co-star for any given performance, as the very conceit requires that they will never take on the role again.

Crouch is one of three credited directors here, alongside collaborators Karl James and Andy Smith, with the trio having shaped the bones of Crouch’s own performance and the blocking of the play’s more structured moments. This pre-existing work allows Crouch to more smoothly take his various guest actors through the performance, and lends additional power to scenes where they are given more freedom of movement. With lines and suggestions given through a range of means, including a microphone feed into earphones, printed script pages, and direct conversation, An Oak Tree provides its audience with the unique experience of seeing an actor directed in real-time. It is at once a rehearsal, an exercise, and a finished piece of theatre, and somehow all of the elements coexist comfortably and effectively.

Of course, it helps that Crouch’s script is a genuinely moving hour of theatre. Andrew, the father of a young girl who the hypnotist was involved in the passing of, emerges as a rich, textured character who has been broken and re-shaped by his grief. The clarity of this in the writing is what allows each actor to go their own way with the reading, so clear is the story that brought Andy to the show that the audience will embrace his reactions to what follows. Likewise, there is a vivid enough sense of who the hypnotist is, or who he has become, that Crouch can adjust his performance to match his co-star without losing the sense of the character he has embodied on-and-off for so many years.

His performance is well-honed and flexible, able to adapt with what the other actor brings to the part without losing any of the long-established emotion behind the role. With only Peter Gill’s music to help set the tone, and no guarantee of how, or if, his guest will act as Andy, Crouch is left to carry much of the show’s weight, and proves more than capable of doing so. Navigating both the heavy, dramatic moments and the knowing drifts into humour – acknowledging a show’s contrivances don’t erase them, but it’s a fun touch – smoothly, and not losing the momentum as he steps out of character to act as director, he alone makes for a thoroughly engrossing evening.

It’s difficult to know how much is too much when it comes to writing about An Oak Tree. After all, when the entire point of the show is that everyone, performer included, is experiencing it for the first time, even what information is available on the Other Palace’s website is debatably too much. What can be said freely, though, is that Tim Crouch’s theatrical experiment still holds weight, and that even the sceptics among us (me) can appreciate the way form and structure are played with, twisted, and occasionally abandoned altogether. With more than four-hundred cast members across twenty-one years, it’s exciting to imagine how far An Oak Tree will continue to grow.

An Oak Tree plays at The Other Palace until November 15th

For tickets and information visit https://theotherpalace.co.uk/an-oak-tree/

Photos by Pamela Raith