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Review
An Oak Tree
Barrow Street Theatre
November 25, 2006
Morgan Wycks
mwycks@nyconstage.org
The British actor, Tim Crouch, presents in the performance of his play, An
Oak Tree, a fascinating exercise in manipulation and the fine line
between what's real and what might be. The story follows a showman hypnotist's
encounter with a father whose young daughter was killed as a pedestrian in an
automobile accident. The driver of the car was the hypnotist, or was he? And the
father at a performance of the hypnotist sits onstage as a subject/participant
initially unrecognizable to the hypnotist, or is he? The gimmick, or to use a
friendlier word, the device here is to have the father played by a different
guest actor at each performance who has no idea what is expected. The actor is
guided, or manipulated, by Mr. Crouch either through direct command, written
script, whispering or through head-set which the actor wears through most of the
performance. With the use of a microphone that feeds into the head-set, Mr.
Crouch intones what might be mere suggestions or adjustments as well as
directions so that the actor can perform accordingly. Since we are not privy to
those directions, the actor can respond any way he or she feels. (At the
performance I attended, the actress, Brooke Smith, found the pain and the
sadness of the father readily.) The result of this excursion is much like
watching a Svengali director auditioning someone for a very important role.
Nevertheless, this production is still simply an exercise in the end and, if
only 65 minutes, goes on 20 minutes too long. Perhaps if the guest actor
challenged Mr. Crow more the results may be different and if the story of the
accident were a little more defined, even though that could negate some of Mr.
Crouch's themes, we might come under the spell more than merely slightly
intrigued.
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