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Review: Improv Transfixes Crowd In Stirring 'Oak Tree'

By KATHY L. GREENBERG

Tribune correspondent

Published: September 9, 2008

TAMPA - Tim Crouch's "An Oak Tree" is a strange exercise that seriously messes with your mind. It's more of an intense acting class/therapy session than a play. But the fascinating discussion it generates between audience and actors makes up for any confusion.

The Gorilla Theatre production stars Steve Mountan as the hypnotist, a Barnum-esque performer who is still reeling from a tragic event that occurred three months earlier. His volunteer is also invested in the incident but neither realizes it at first. From one hypnotic suggestion to the next, each character relives and reconciles their respective misfortune.

The story is the least impressive element here. Of greater interest is that each evening a different actor portrays the volunteer. The guest actor, either male or female, has never seen the script until the night of the performance. In fact, the prerequisite for participating is having no previous knowledge of the play.

The actor comes to the stage cold, and Mountan feeds him or her direction through a few pages of text and an earpiece. The result is a medley of scripted dialogue and improvisation.

Mountan was sympathetic and charming as the broken Svengali, even in his character's most humiliating moments. In lightning-quick mental leaps, he soothed or berated Emilia Sargent, who played the volunteer on opening night.

Sargent immediately embraced the unknown. It was mesmerizing to watch her physicality change on a dime, depending upon what Mountan told her to be, do or say. She admitted in the post-performance talkback that she's a "rules follower." Her ability to defy her instincts for the sake of the show made her performance even more remarkable.

Director Ami Sallee Corley gave the actors the necessary freedom to draw out their best work. She kept the external influences minimal, like Lynne Locher's spare scenic and sound design, which conjured a sort of tabula rasa atmosphere.

In the post-performance discussion, theatergoers voiced their impressions and learned about the actors' process, which Mountan called the Rorschach-test part of the play.

Sargent, for example, stated she experienced a visceral reaction in some moments. No one might have guessed that if she hadn't said so. Some audience members said they shared her feelings of confusion, pain and discomfort.

Ladies and gentlemen, as an intimate peek into the world of theater, this was a great show on Earth.