Perth Theatre Company’s latest offering, An Oak Tree, challenges the power of the mind’s eye.
The play by Tim Crouch has successfully toured the globe, breaking box office records in London and picking up awards in New York, and after featuring in the Melbourne International Arts Festival it has landed in Perth under the guiding hand of director Lawrie Cullen-Tait.
The premise is that a hypnotist, played by Equity Guild Award winning actor Luke Hewitt, meets with another character, played by a guest actor, and out of the meeting develops a story about loss, human experience and the power of suggestion, which is interwoven with vivid imagery and moments of absurd comedy.
The guest actor has no knowledge of the play they are about to be in, however they are directed by Hewitt and given instructions from an earpiece and a script once onstage.
The idea is to make the audience question what they believe to be happening on stage.
‘Something that really helps is it’s based on a piece of art by this conceptual artist Michael Craig Martin and his piece from 1973 is a glass of water on a shelf – it’s an installation – and it’s titled An Oak Tree, and next to it is a description of why it’s an oak tree, and it’s about powers of suggestion,’ Cullen-Tait said.
‘And what its saying is that because the artist has called it an oak tree, it is an oak tree and he delegates that all the way through.
‘But the really fascinating concept – because it actually parallels the whole thing about theatre anyway – is that we believe what they say they are onstage. So it’s a really clever premise that Tim Crouch has taken this from.’
A different guest actor performs each night and includes a huge range of ‘Perthonalities’, such as politician John Hyde, Channel Nine newsreader Dixie Marshall, comedian Tim Minchin and RTRFM presenter Peter Barr.
‘It’ll be an achievement because they’re going through something they don’t know with a whole audience watching,’ Cullen-Tait said.
‘But, as I said, it’s really well crafted and they’re in safe hands because they’re with Luke and due to the genius of Tim Crouch’s crafting it is safe.’
While there are specific twists and an eventual outcome to the play, the use of different guest actors is so that they also discover their own meaning from moment to moment.
‘What drew me to it is the fact that it challenged people’s belief,’ Cullen-Tait said.
‘Not in a controversial way but it’s just saying that we see things in certain ways – and what are they and who says they are and what we think things are, maybe aren’t what they actually seem – which as you can see is a lovely metaphor; how the play exists anyway and how the marketing of it exists in people’s minds before they go to it.
‘This play makes the audience work and that’s brilliant because the audience will get so much more out of it.’
Tickets can be bought through BOCs at www.bocsticketing.com.au or phoning 9484 1133.
The performance runs from 8pm at His Majesty’s Theatre from Thursday, November 12, every night, except Sunday, until December 5.
Aja Styles
