SITE GUIDE
SEARCH
REVIEWS LINKS TO CURRENTLY RUNNING NY SHOWS
REVIEW ARCHIVES
Broadway
Off-Broadway
. PLAYWRIGHTS' ALBUMS
.
Masthead
A CurtainUp Los Angeles Review
Thom Pain (based on nothing)
|
"I have an incredibly rich interio.r life"— Thom Pain.
|
Rainn Wilson (Photo: Michael Lamont)
|
That was oddly liberating. We now return you to our regularly scheduled, somewhat less random consideration of Thom Pain (based on nothing). This high-wire act of a monologue written by Will Eno and performed by Rainn Wilson has been hugely ballyhooed since its 2004 premiere at the Edinburgh Festival starring James Urbaniak. The Geffen Playhouse engagement is Wilson's first crack at Pain and the actor (a long-time friend of Eno and best known for playing Dwight Schrute on The Office) takes to it like buck to sandpaper.
Sorry, there I go again. Eno, with Wilson as his mouthpiece, pulls off the free associative weirdness with far greater finesse. Indeed, it takes a certain kind of a talent to unleash the mind in this manner and leave it free to roam with such gleeful abandon.
Thom Pain (based on nothing) may feel like an 80-minute existential exercise, but there is a method to the randomness and the performance never jumps the rails. With Oliver Butler directing and Wilson never letting us out of his strangely magnetic grasp, Thom Pain is quirkily captivating.
"How wonderful to see you all," are the first words we hear. They are spoken in total darkness and we can't quite tell if the speaker is being sincere. The narrator tries to light a cigarette and fails, twice. Eventually the lights do come up, but not because of anything he manages to do. "Some things are not up to us," he later informs us. True enough, but some things are.
Pain wears a dark suit and a tie, but he has not dressed for any particular occasion. He does not introduce himself. How he got here, where he is, who we are and what our relationship is to the man who is addressing us is never made clear. Pain makes repeated reference to a raffle and he ultimately brings an audience member on stage. Can't guarantee that these things will happen at &mdash every&mdash performance. You kind of get the idea that Pain is playing things as the mood strikes him.
As previously noted, this existential riffing has a purpose that is part memory, part instruction. Pain tells of a little boy, a wounded dog, and his love for a woman that came to a predictably unfortunate end. "Love cankers all," he says and the man's not malapropping.
Our anti-hero is not here in the interest of fostering a human connection. Granted, Pain is addressing a room full of people and what he has to tell his guests could potentially do them some good. Nonetheless, the man seems to have stepped out of the pages of Samuel Beckett, meaning his future (and, by extension, our own) is probably hugely bleak. With his sad face and slightly quivering hands, Wilson's Pain takes little or no pleasure in whatever humor or entertainment he is affording us. In fact, there are a couple of moments where he actively messes with us.
Given the windy road he takes into, out of, and around the darkness, I'm not sure our aptly named guide genuinely earns the play's final line (which will not be repeated here). Nonetheless, Eno's play is one of those rare occasions when Pain is a good thing.
|
Thom Pain (based on nothing)By Will Eno Directed by Oliver Butler Cast: Steven Wrightn Scenic and Lighting Design: Daniel Ionazzi Costume Design: Candice Cain Production Stage Manager: Elizabeth A. Brohm Plays through February 24, 2016 at the Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave., Los Angeles, (310) 208-5454, www.geffenplayhouse.com Running time: One hour and twenty minutes with no intermission. Reviewed by Evan Henerson |
|
REVIEW FEEDBACK Highlight one of the responses below and click "copy" or"CTRL+C"
Paste the highlighted text into the subject line (CTRL+ V): Feel free to add detailed comments in the body of the email. . .also the names and emails of any friends to whom you'd like us to forward a copy of this review. For a feed to reviews and features as they are posted add http://curtainupnewlinks.blogspot.com to your reader Curtainup at Facebook . . . Curtainup at Twitter Subscribe to our FREE email updates: E-mail: esommer@curtainup.comesommer@curtainup.com put SUBSCRIBE CURTAINUP EMAIL UPDATE in the subject line and your full name and email address in the body of the message. If you can spare a minute, tell us how you came to CurtainUp and from what part of the country. |
|
Anything Goes Cast Recording
Book of Mormon -CD