An Oak Tree review – Tim Crouch's tricksy two-hander is still a theatrical wonder
A n Oak Tree unpicks what it means to make-believe. Returning for a 20th anniversary production, Tim Crouch's tricksy two-hander sees him toy with a guest star who has never seen the script before they are fed it, piece by piece, in front of an audience. Thrumming with liveness as it tells a story of grief, the play illuminates the manipulation and the wonder of the way stories transform us.
Inspired by Michael Craig-Martin's 1973 conceptual artwork that insists a glass of water is an oak tree, Crouch's theatrical illusion talks things into being. He tells us a piano stool is an oak tree and an oak tree is a girl, so each insistence becomes true. He tells us his guest is a grieving father, and suddenly what we can see cracks in two. By layering these suggestions, he highlights the wizardry of any actor walking on to any stage, saying they are a character and asking us to believe them.
The script is always the same but, with a different second actor each night, every performance is unique. Tonight, we are gifted Jessie Buckley, laughter spilling out between her allotted lines. Crouch is a showman, handing her scripts on clipboards and feeding her lines, asking if she's OK then telling her to say yes. As we watch her, she watches him, the trust and determination and delight evident in the sideways lean of her smile. It becomes a game between them, but never to the point of excluding us.
Underneath the absurdity of the conceit, the story's sadness is a butterfly net chasing us through the show, fluttering at our backs until it swallows us whole. Buckley's speech about losing a child, given to her one line at a time as Crouch stands in the shadows, gains extra poignancy as she holds her pregnant belly.
The play's manipulation – of the actor's freedom, of our feelings – is deliberate and all-knowing. The wonder of the performance lies in the way Crouch appears to point back at what he's done, drawing our attention to the architecture of the action. He is a scientist explaining his technique, a magician rolling up his sleeves, a puppeteer showing us how he pulls the strings. He tells us it's not real and still we insist that it is. He lays bare the act of making theatre.
At the Young Vic, London, until 24 May
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