Co-stars at the last minute

Unrehearsed Thai actors will take turns opposite Tim Crouch in the perception-bending stage production 'An Oak Tree'

When was the last time a play came directly from Britain to Bangkok? Sam Mendes' "Richard III", starring Kevin Spacey, veered off to Hong Kong and Singapore last year. Otherwise you have to go all the way back to the early 1990s to recall a pair of shows by the Royal Shakespeare Company.

But now the British Council and Chulalongkorn University are bringing us "An Oak Tree", which won the Herald Angel award on its premiere at the 2005 Edinburgh Festival.

Tim Crouch, the show's writer, director and star, will be here next weekend on his first visit to Thailand as he makes his way to Manila's Shakespeare Theatre Festival to present his solo "I, Malvolio".

Who is Tim Crouch - any relation to England international striker Peter Crouch? No, but the UK arts newsletter Kulturflash has called him "one of the smartest artists making theatre in Britain now".

Two men meet in "An Oak Tree": a stage hypnotist who has just killed a girl in a car accident, and her father - who volunteers to be part of his act!

Crouch always plays the hypnotist, but for the father role he selects different actors who've neither read the script nor seen the play, and they only meet an hour before curtain time. They don't improvise, however - the dialogue is fixed.

And this is how it's been presented around the world on nearly 300 occasions, including long runs in London, New York and Los Angeles. He's played opposite Academy Award winners F Murray Abraham, Frances McDormand and - the time I saw this play in Melbourne in 2008 - Geoffrey Rush. Mike Myers of "Austin Powers" fame even took a turn off-Broadway.

So who'll be the Dad in Bangkok? That will remain a secret until the last minute, but I'm told that a pair of UK-schooled professional Thai actors is cued up. They're not native English speakers, but Crouch requires only an understanding of the script.

He didn't set out to experiment with form. The story came first. "A dialogue gets established between form and content," he says. "Every story requires a different form for its telling."

Conceptual artist Michael Craig-Martin once famously affirmed that his glass of water was an oak tree, and that's where Crouch got his title, seeking the same "transformation" and "transubstantiation" in viewer perception.

"Each time the play is performed, the audience sees a person transformed into another person," Crouch says. "They see a space transformed into another space, a time transformed into another time. 'Now' becomes 'then' and 'here' becomes 'there' - all without rehearsal, without effort, without process, as if by magic, through the power of suggestion.

"This transformation happens with every work of art. Our weakness as artists is working too hard to achieve it, showing too much, not trusting the audience to help us achieve the transformation."

Experiencing "An Oak Tree", a reviewer at the British newspaper the Guardian said, "is like watching your own heart being mugged. You know exactly how it is happening, but you still can't prevent it." Time Out New York called the show "a playful, imaginative and unexpectedly lovely tribute to the power of suggestion". The LA Times saw "a master class in acting".

Having seen Crouch with Rush in Australia, I can only agree with the Observer, although The Nation must curb the enthusiasm: "Absolutely f**king fantastic!"

The play is presented in (less straightforward) English, and Crouch declines to offer Thai surtitles.

"We used surtitles in Greece and Germany and the audience had to look up and down from the screen to the actors, like watching a foreign-language film. It was agreed from the beginning that for the Bangkok performances we would not use them."

Possibly some Thais will miss a few words, he says, but it's the relationship between the actors that's important.

Why it's a must-see

"Tim Crouch's 'England', which I saw at an art gallery in Australia in 2008, was the first formal theatre performance I'd seen in a formal gallery, says visual artist Prapon Kumjim.

"Crouch and Hannah Ringham portrayed guides on a gallery tour, but through dramatic twists and flips, they cleverly managed to unhinge and destabilise the heavily guarded worlds of visual arts and theatrical traditions, while illuminating human vulnerability."

Prapon is looking forward to "An Oak Tree" because it's "a completely new work" every time. "It was inspired by Michael Craig-Martin, one of the grand gurus of conceptual art."

Sirichana Homsilpakul, assistant producer for "Si Phaendin: The Musical", is keen on Crouch's approach because the focus is on the viewers' interpretations of the performance.

"Tim allows his audience to make sense of the drama by letting them actively engage in his work. The beauty of theatre, the 'liveness' of it, is fully explored and utilised.

"These days the role of the audience is being questioned more, and an experience with Tim Crouch might provide some answers."

WIN TICKETS

The Nation has five pairs of tickets for the February 4 show for readers who can explain why they want to see the show in 50 words or less. Send your answer to xpnation@gmail.com by Sunday. The winners' names will be listed on Tuesday.

"An Oak Tree" is being staged on February 3 and 4 at 7.30pm at Chulalongkorn University's Sodsai Pantoomkomol Centre for Dramatic Arts on Henri Dunant Road.

Tickets cost Bt500 (Bt300 if you're 27 or younger, Bt200 for students) at the CU Book Centre in Siam Square and (02) 218 4802 or (081) 1559 7252.

Crouch will give a free lecture at Chula called "An Exploration of Theatre's Substance" on February 2 at 4pm and conduct a free workshop on "Exploring the Role of the Audience" at 7pm. Reserve seats at ChulaDrama@gmail.com.

Find out more at www.TimCrouchTheatre.co.uk and the "Drama Arts Chula" Facebook page.