An Oak Tree (Oberon Modern Plays)

'Since your daughter's death I've not been much of a hypnotist.'
A man loses his daughter to a car accident. Nothing now is what it seems. It's like he's in a play - but he doesn't know the words or the moves.
The man who was driving the car is a stage hypnotist. Since the accident he's lost the power of suggestion. His act's a disaster. For him, everything now is exactly what it is. For the first time since the accident, these two men meet. They meet when the Father volunteers for the Hypnotist's act. And, this time, he really doesn't know the words or the moves...

An Oak Tree is a remarkable play for two actors. The Father, however, is played by a different actor - male or female - at each performance. They walk on stage having neither seen nor read a word of the play they're in...until they're in it. This is a breath-taking projection of a performance, given from one actor to another, from a hypnotist to their subject, from an audience to a person. An Oak Tree is a bold and absurdly comic play about loss, suggestion and the power of the mind.

An Oak Tree premiered at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh in August 2005.

Tim Crouch is a UK theatre artist based in Brighton. He writes plays, performs in them and takes responsibility for their production. He started to make his own work in 2003. Before then he was an actor.

Tim works with a number of associates and collaborators to produce his writing. There isn't a company structure; things and people are brought together when they are needed. The starting process has always been a text written by Crouch. Early work was made in response to a self-generated impulse to tell a story or explore a form. This impulse is still the first motivation but, lately, it's become slightly more formalized through the involvement of various commissioning theatres and organizations. Tim's work tours extensively to UK and international venues and festivals.