If nothing else, one must certainly admire the sheer ingenuity of Tim Crouch's An Oak Tree. Rather than simply write a play about the fluid nature of reality, he has created a theatrical experience that aptly demonstrates the philosophy. It is the purest form of the "Show, Don't Tell" rule.
At once simple and mind-bogglingly complex, An Oak Tree's plot focuses on a father's need for closure after the accidental death of his young daughter. In alternating scenes, he convinces himself that a tree has become his child, and attends a performance by the hypnotist who killed her in a distracted moment. Both men are consumed by guilt and grief, and both must struggle to live in their painful new reality.
What sets An Oak Tree above other plays that deal with such subjects is its presentation. Mr. Crouch himself plays the guilt-ridden hypnotist, but a different actor plays the bereaved father each night. The second actor has never seen nor read the play before walking onstage, and has only met Mr. Crouch one hour beforehand. Once they are onstage together, Mr. Crouch feeds the actor his lines via microphone and printed script pages. Rather than becoming the father through study and preparation, the second actor becomes the character simply by virtue of saying that he is. All of the emotion is instinctual. (This role would be a method actor's worst nightmare.) At the performance I attended, Charles Busch played the father with a gently pathetic elegance, learning the tragic role as he performed it and quite literally giving the character life before our eyes.
The problem with this unique presentation is that, by necessity, the action must constantly be stopped in order for lines and instruction to be imparted to the guest performer. In one scene, when the hypnotist realizes just who he is talking to, he dramatically collapses in shock grief-- only to leap back up to his feet to tell the second actor what to do next, and then return to his prostrate position. Needless to say, the intensity of the moment is lost, and it takes a while for the energy to pick back up again.
And such is the overall experience of the play. No matter how inventive it is, how clever, how emotional, it is inherently impossible to get caught up in the moment, because that moment will be broken to remind us that we are watching a play in which one actor does not know his part. If a third person-- say, a stage manager-- remained off-stage functioning solely as a prompter for the second actor, the momentum of the play could continue unbroken. Mr. Crouch could play his part without breaking character, and the second actor could still learn the role as he performs it, thus keeping the dramatic concept going.
But there are moments of great power and beauty in this play, and when it works, it's brilliant. A scene in which the mother of the dead girl (also played by Mr. Crouch) suffers a nervous breakdown while her husband reads a guide on self-hypnosis is shattering in its intensity. While An Oak Tree may be uneven, it is certainly original, and unlike many performance pieces that smother under their own quirks, this play blooms.
