Tim Crouch: Plays One

The Author; England; An Oak Tree; My Arm

Tim Crouch

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781350322028
• eBook ISBN: 9781849435192
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

Includes the plays The Author, England, An Oak Tree and My Arm. My Arm '...he is actually exploring on stage the nature of art and performance itself, taking risks in the process… At these moments, Crouch is armed and dangerous.' Guardian An Oak Tree 'Pirandello for a modern audience and better. It's philosophy inaction, playful and seriously thought-provoking.' Independent on Sunday ENGLAND '…created with rigorous, poetic economy… ENGLAND belongs to that wonderful genre of thoughtful plays that could be discussed for hours without exhausting its ideas.' New York Times The Author 'This is not audience participation; it is the audience at once being the theatre and interrogating it.' Financial Times

AN OAK TREE

An Oak Tree – Nationaltheater, Mannheim, Germany.
Tim Crouch and a smith, 2005
© Nina Urban

EXCERPTS FROM…

an oak tree
1973
objects, water, and text
collection: National Gallery of Australia
by Michael Craig-Martin

(There is a glass of water on a shelf. This is An Oak Tree, a work made by British artist Michael Craig-Martin in 1973. Beside the glass of water there is a text:)

Excerpt 1

Q.	To begin with, could you describe this work?
A.	Yes, of course. What I’ve done is change a glass of water into a full-grown oak tree without altering the accidents of the glass of water.
Q.	The accidents?
A.	Yes. The colour, feel, weight, size…
Q.	Do you mean that the glass of water is a symbol of an oak tree?
A.	No. It’s not a symbol. I’ve changed the physical substance of the glass of water into that of an oak tree.
Q.	It looks like a glass of water.
A.	Of course it does. I didn’t change its appearance. But it’s not a glass of water, it’s an oak tree.

Excerpt 2

Q.	Do you consider that changing the glass of water into an oak tree constitutes an art work?
A.	Yes.
Q.	What precisely is the art work? The glass of water?
A.	There is no glass of water anymore.
Q.	The process of change?
A.	There is no process involved in the change.
Q.	The oak tree?
A.	Yes. The oak tree.

(Reproduced by kind permission of Michael Craig-Martin)

Previewed at the Nationaltheater Mannheim, Germany, 29 April 2005

Premiered at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, 5 August 2005

Performed by Tim Crouch and a second actor

Co-directed by Tim Crouch, Karl James and a smith
Original sound design by Peter Gill

to Pam and Colin

‘The distinction between fact and fiction is a late acquisition
of rational thought – unknown to the unconscious, and largely
ignored by the emotions.’

Arthur Koestler

Notes for the second actor

(Given to anyone who may be considering taking part in a performance.)

An Oak Tree is a two hander. It’s a bit over an hour long. I’m the author and one of the actors. As the second actor, you would walk on stage with me at the start with no knowledge of the play you’re about to be in. There is a different second actor in each and every performance of An Oak Tree. No one ever does it twice. This device intricately and importantly supports the play’s fictional story.

As the second actor in performance, you would never be asked to generate words of your own. Everything you say in the play (and everything I say in the play) has been carefully scripted. You would, however, be asked to be ‘open’. (I say the play IS improvised, it’s just not improvised with words!) This is a different kind of ‘play’. Your performance (with words) would be given to you through a variety of devices: by direct and very simple instructions, by me speaking to you through an earpiece, by reading from pieces of script. There is no casting criteria in any traditional sense. All we ask is that you must have neither seen nor read the play, that you’re happy (and confident) to sightread, happy to wear an iPod-style ear piece, happy to allow the play to pass through you and be open to it and your instinct. There is never any pressure on you to be ‘perfect’; you can do nothing wrong. There’s no preparation, no costume, no lines to learn. The second actor can be male or female, and of any adult age.

If you’re up for it, then we would meet an hour before the performance. We’d talk through some ideas behind the play and I’d answer any questions. We’d then test levels on a microphone and practise with a separate bit of script to get a sense of sightreading in the space. I then do the rest – guiding you through an hour or so of theatre in which you carry the main fictional narrative. Much of our work in rehearsal has been about making the second actor’s experience feel completely supported and successful; there is no element of cruelty or parody whatsoever in this approach. Each actor who has been in An Oak Tree has spoken of a sense of liberation in the process.

One caution is that the story of An Oak...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half-title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• My Arm
• An Oak Tree
• ENGLAND
• The Author
• Afterword