Look at me. Listen to my voice…
Tim Crouch’s mesmerizing An Oak Tree, playing at Luminato Festival through June 22, is unlike anything most of us have experienced in theatre. The groundbreaking work, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary, features Crouch as a stage hypnotist, alongside a different actor each night who has never read the script. At my performance, the actor in question was the compelling Rebecca Henderson (Netflix’s Russian Doll).
I’m going to ask you a question. Say ‘yes’.
Crouch, an innovative British theatre-maker known for testing conventional performance boundaries, has created a piece that has captivated audiences worldwide, with over 400 actors stepping into the unrehearsed role since its debut. The conceit sounds ripe for comedy . . . but while moments of humour emerge, they serve only to heighten a series of nested perceptual challenges thrown at the unsuspecting actor and audience. The show’s premise is in fact tragic: a hypnotist attempts to perform his act while grappling with a tragic incident involving a grieving father.
We’re going to read this script now . . .
The stage setup is minimal, yet the emotional landscape is vast. Henderson, like every guest performer before her, receives instructions — sometimes through headphones, and sometimes through direct interaction with Crouch, sometimes through suggestions, and sometimes as commands — and in the way she follows them, delivers a raw, authentic performance that blurs the lines between reality and theatrical construct. It feels like it should be easy to process this approach, which exposes usually hidden theatrical machinery. In reality, it transforms the traditional actor-audience relationship into something more complicated and unpredictable.
We’re not in a theatre, and you are not spectators…
Through Crouch’s hypnotic suggestions and Henderson’s unrehearsed responses, we participate in a kaleidoscopic exploration of grief and perception. The play weaves together themes of loss, belief, and perspective transformation using everything from base bodily humour to the seven stages of grief to immersive evocations of synaesthetic beauty. The experience shifts constantly beneath our feet, challenging our understanding of what’s real, what’s scripted, what’s imagined … and who’s running the show.
After this, you’re free to be yourself…
To reveal more would diminish the impact of this unique theatrical experience. Suffice it to say that An Oak Tree operates on multiple levels simultaneously: as performance art, as meditation on loss, and as exploration of theatrical form itself. And the collaboration between Luminato Festival and TO Live has brought this mind-bending piece to Toronto audiences at perhaps the perfect moment, when circumstances require us all to be receptive to questioning our perceptions of reality.
When you open your eyes, you’ll awaken…
What emerges from this hypnotic theatrical journey feels both profound and disorienting. The hypnotist’s spell may break, but An Oak Tree plants something lasting: questions that take root and have already begun to grow when we depart the theatre.
An Oak Tree, presented by Luminato Festival, continues on stage at the Jane Mallett Theatre, St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts, until June 22, 2025.
- June 20, 7:30 PM – ASL Interpretation
- June 21, 2 PM – Relaxed Performance
- June 22, 2 PM – Audio Description
Tickets are available on luminatofestival.com.
© Scott Sneddon, Sesaya Arts Magazine 2025
