an oak tree

An oak tree. A hypnotist. An actor, who’s never seen nor read the script, playing a grieving father. Now celebrating its tenth anniversary and having featured more than 300 different actors in its lifespan, Tim Crouch’s An Oak Tree shows us its own mechanics in a profound and complex theatrical experiment. The show stands the test of time; it’s a groundbreaking piece of work. Based on Michael Craig-Martin’s 1973 conceptual work of art of the same name, Crouch examines creation and belief in this moving production about a father seeking help from the man who accidentally killed his daughter.

A Girl is a Half Formed Thing’s Aoife Duffin played the father, Andy, during the performance I saw. With Crouch’s specific instruction and encouragement at every step, Duffin substantiates the idea of the 6’2” father, convinced that he has found his dead daughter alive in the essence of an oak tree at the road side. An Oak Tree playfully interrogates the construction of theatre; pausing to reflect with the actor, assigning character to inanimate objects or to nothing at all. We applaud an empty chair, later transformed into a bewildered five year old girl and back to a seat for the actor. Andy’s oak tree daughter begins to make sense in the mournful stillness of the stage.

It would be interesting to see the performance go a step further in relinquishing further freedoms to the mystery actor; with the whole piece under Crouch’s careful supervision, the idea of the actor learning how they fit into the play’s structure isn’t as evident as it has the potential to be. Nonetheless, the mechanisms of the production are showing, the lines between actor, “actor” and character blurring as it comes to an emotional close.

Deeply moving and ontological, Crouch asks us to open our hearts to a hypothetical world and we obey.

An Oak Tree is playing at Traverse Theatre (Venue 15) from 11-16 August as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. For more information, visit the Edinburgh Fringe website.