There are some radical, provocative works of theatre on in Sydney at the moment, none more so than British playwright Tim Crouch’s ‘An Oak Tree’, directed by Tanya Goldberg.
Yes, this is the two-hander where there is a different second guest actor every night, with the actor only knowing the gist of the scenario, with the rest being improvised on the night.
‘An Oak Tree’ opens and we are part of an audience at a hypnotist’s show. The hypnotist calls up people from the audience, and one of those people is a middle-aged man. As the play unfolds. it comes out that there’s a dark connection between the two men. Recenty, the hypnotist had a car accident and ran over a young girl. The man the hypnotist selected from the audience is the grieving father of the girl.
My verdict… ‘An Oak Tree’ is a worthwhile, interesting experiment that doesn’t quite satisfy and feels a bit gimmicky.
There’s a good play here. The premise is strong, the play has a good structure, and the themes of trauma and loss, and the power of auto-suggestion, are weighty ones. I just don’t believe the way it was done worked that well.
There was was no doubting the commitment of everyone in this Ride On production. Tanya Goldberg’s production has a very energised and committed John Leary in the lead role, is a very controlling presence on stage and through an ear-piece, or by face to face, talks directly to the second actor.
It gave the guest actor little room to move and improvise. As well the guest actor carried around a power pack. On one occasion I saw the play Eden Falk played the guest actor and the power pack fell out of his pants pocket. It was just another sign of an interesting play that just didn’t have enough of a flow.
