‘Awhi Tapu’ and ‘An Oak Tree’ are on until the end of the week.  I found both fas­ci­nat­ing for the way the sto­ry was told as much as for the nar­ra­tive.

Awhi Tapu at Down­stage is set in a small ex-tim­ber town. Wendyl is the leader hold­ing Raj, Casper, and Girl Girl, togeth­er. He’s hop­ing for a pos­i­tive out­come for the town and his friends. It’s a nice, phys­i­cal, ensem­ble piece, with a slight­ly bit­ter edge.  Down­stage have been gath­er­ing audi­ence feed­back which they are shar­ing.

An Oak Tree at Cir­ca is a two han­der with a twist. Only Tim Spite (as the Hyp­no­tist) real­ly knows what’s going on. His guest actor/human pup­pet (as the Father) is unpre­pared and has nev­er read the script. They (and the audi­ence) are fed their lines in a num­ber of dif­fer­ent ways. The fun is in watch­ing the guest react and act out the instruc­tions. Sev­er­al lay­ers of time and space make it a tricky show to watch. I found it sur­pris­ing­ly mov­ing despite the way we were all manip­u­lat­ed. Or maybe because of the way we were all manip­u­lat­ed…?