07-05-2025
An Oak Tree review — with a new star every time, no two nights are the same
'How free am I?' asks the Irish actress Jessie Buckley, called up on stage to play the second role in Tim Crouch's experimental play An Oak Tree. Crouch, dressed as a stage hypnotist in suit trousers and silver waistcoat, first frowns then smiles. 'Every word you say is scripted,' he says, 'but otherwise …'
There won't be many more spontaneous utterances in a show designed as a theatrical hall of mirrors. Authenticity is not only not quite the point but is under interrogation too, even as the show's depiction of grief becomes as emotionally intense as it is playful. Or it can do, anyway. First staged in 2005, Crouch's show, inspired by Michael Craig-Martin's artwork of the same name, is about a grieving
