Writer: Tim Crouch
Directors: Tim Crouch, Karl James and Andy Smith
Tim Crouch’s An Oak Tree is a richly layered meditation on grief, guilt, and the power of theatrical imagination. Capitalising on the live, unpredictable nature of theatre, the piece centres on a bold concept: one role is played by a different actor each night, performed tonight by Jessie Buckley, unrehearsed and unprepared.
Crouch, who also directs alongside Karl James and Andy Smith, plays a stage hypnotist whose act is unexpectedly disrupted when a grieving father, Buckley’s role, volunteers to participate. However, the twist is that the hypnotist is responsible for the accidental death of the father’s daughter. The narrative unfolds in a constant state of tension between control and chaos, memory and immediacy, fiction and reality.
Set in a rehearsal-room-like space (stacked chairs, speakers, a central piano stool), the performance slowly builds into something quietly theatrical. Crouch’s informal welcome gently eases the audience into the conceptual demands of the piece, before the mechanics of the show become clear. Instructions are fed to Buckley via headphones or handed script pages, a technique that draws us into the very act of performance.
The mechanics of the story are occasionally slow to get going, but every action is wonderfully reflected in the story. Buckley, not least heavily pregnant, contrasts with her role and surprises at every turn. Her presence adds another layer to the play’s reflections on loss and life.
Ultimately, An Oak Tree is a poetic and intellectually rigorous piece that uses the language of theatre to illuminate the psychological murk of bereavement. It doesn’t just ask what it means to lose someone, it asks what it means to believe they’re gone. An Oak Tree is a play which very easily could become too clever for its own good, but nevertheless remains rooted in its emotional truth.
Runs until 24 May 2025
