Interview: Tim Crouch

Performer Tim Crouch, much admired for his challenging, intimate and risk-taking way with performance, returns this week to Bristol – the city where it all began for him – with a tenth anniversary revival for his mould-breaking play An Oak Tree.
Set in a stage hypnotist’s act, An Oak Tree is an intricate story of loss and suggestion performed by two people: the playwright himself and a different second actor at each performance. The latter will have neither seen nor read a word of the play until they’re in it.
Here’s Tim on invention and risk in theatre – and why Bristol will always be his spiritual home.

A “breathless balance of accessible story, complex ideas and rich theatricality”, reads the blurb. A fair summation of An Oak Tree?
I think so, yes! The ideas came first – but ideas don’t make a play. The story came second. It’s a good story, one that holds all those ‘complex’ ideas in a gripping narrative. And then, by ‘rich theatricality’, I suppose I mean the form. There is a way in which the story is told that could ONLY be achieved with theatre. For me ‘theatricality’ is about the live relationship between the audience and the stage – and An Oak Tree celebrates this. It’s a different show every time.

The second actor has not seen a word of the play until they’re in it. It must be a show full of risks…?
There is no right way to do the show. It happens differently each time. I don’t have in my head an image of how I want the lines delivered, or the space inhabited. And, because there is no right way, there is also no wrong way! Moments get lost, lines get swallowed, clarity and narrative are negotiated each time. And this is the most exciting thing! This live negotiation is deeply connected to the story that the play tells. It is there for a reason. In one sense, An Oak Tree fails every time: but this is its success!  
It also means that I am very free about each performance. As a traditional actor, I used to get terrible nerves about doing it ‘right’ – about hitting the mark. With An Oak Tree, I am open to what happens each time – and I invite the second actor to be equally open. There is a huge sense of playfulness in the experience, for everyone involved. For some people this might feel like a risk: for me it feels like a gift.

Why is the second actor’s unfamiliarity with the script so crucial?
The second actor device is not a gimmick. It intricately supports the story the play tells. The second actor plays a character who is lost in their life. And that character is played by an actor who is ‘lost’ on the stage. The form supports the story: the story supports the form. The device also contributes to my search for ‘liveness’ in theatre – the audience see the choices that are made from moment to moment throughout the performance. Nothing is hidden – all the processes are exposed – and yet still the audience is transported to another place.

What sorts of thoughts and feelings do you hope the play might leave with its audiences?
I’m excited that An Oak Tree tells a story in a way that many people might not have seen before. It’s about possibility – and I would like an audience to come away from the show with a new sense of what’s possible. The play packs an emotional punch, but it is also extremely playful in how it does that. It’s disorientating sometimes in how it switches back and forth between states – so you might come away from it with a slight sense of dizziness.

An Oak Tree is at Bristol Old Vic from Tuesday, September 15 to Saturday, September 19. For more info and to book tickets, visit www.bristololdvic.org.uk/anoaktree.html

Pictures: Greg Veit