Margaret Quamme posted her review of Thom Pain (based on nothing) on the Columbus Dispatch website this morning. Here are some choice cuts:
Sometimes the most minimal theatre is the most spell-binding. Will Eno’s “Thom Pain (based on nothing)” consists of a single actor rambling on for about an hour on a nearly empty stage. It’s a tightrope act that demands that both the performer and the audience stay almost breathlessly on their toes. And when it’s done right, as it is in Available Light Theatre’s mesmerizing production, it leaves more conventional theatre in the dust.
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The play is performed in the intimate setting of the Vanderelli Room’s gallery space, which means that Pain can pace freely through the small audience, casting his gaze here and there, making one audience member after another squirm, and hinting at potential embarrassments to come in a way that would be less effective in a more formal space.
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Magic – which Pain feels, at the very least, ambivalent about – is one of the recurring themes of the play, and appropriately so. The play makes use of rickety sleight of hand to lull the audience into a state where more real, and more dangerous, philosophical and emotional magic can do its work.
Read the whole review right here.
Get tickets and more info for Thom Pain right here.
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