Thom Pain (Based on Nothing): A Play That Makes the Audience Squirm

Picture a tony Upper East Side bar on a quiet night. The man next to you is effortlessly handsome, impeccably dressed in a well-cut suit. His diction suggests an expensive education. He puts away gin-and-tonics like lemonade. He is irresistibly clever, and he knows it. Life, you think, must be gentle on such a fortunate man. Yet it isn’t. He spins sorrowful autobiographical anecdotes from a distance, mocking himself along the way so as to foreclose any suspicion that he is seeking your pity. Whenever he gets close to earnestness or genuine feeling, he capers away. The more playful asides and one-liners he delivers, the more you realize how regretful he is, how apart he stands from himself. You come to realize that you are one of many, many people for whom he has put on such a performance over the years. You start to sneak glances at your watch. He notices. He keeps talking. Your attention is important to him. You can sense him straining to be understood, even as he pretends not to care.

This is approximately the experience of watching Thom Pain (Based on Nothing), the monologue by Will Eno that gathered in considerable acclaim, and was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize, upon its 2005 Off Broadway run. The play is a digressive series of melancholy memories interrupted by absurdist asides and pointed witticisms. There is no story or lesson here, just a drolly self-aware character protecting himself behind the barbed wire of irony. In other words, the play is almost perfectly on the wavelength of, say, a self-loathing alcoholic theater critic. No, I’m not thinking of anyone in particular, why do you ask?

About the Author

Kyle Smith

Kyle Smith is the film critic for the Wall Street Journal.

Picture a tony Upper East Side bar on a quiet night. The man next to you is effortlessly handsome, impeccably dressed in a well-cut suit. His diction suggests an expensive education. He puts away gin-and-tonics like lemonade. He is irresistibly clever, and he knows it. Life, you think, must be gentle on such a fortunate man. Yet it isn’t. He spins sorrowful autobiographical anecdotes from a distance, mocking himself along the way so as to foreclose any suspicion that he is seeking your pity. Whenever he gets close to earnestness or genuine feeling, he capers away. The more playful asides and one-liners he delivers, the more you realize how regretful he is, how apart he stands from himself. You come to realize that you are one of many, many people for whom he has put on such a performance over the years. You start to sneak glances at your watch. He notices. He keeps talking. Your attention is important to him. You can sense him straining to be understood, even as he pretends not to care.

This is approximately the experience of watching Thom Pain (Based on Nothing), the monologue by Will Eno that gathered in considerable acclaim, and was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize, upon its 2005 Off Broadway run. The play is a digressive series of melancholy memories interrupted by absurdist asides and pointed witticisms. There is no story or lesson here, just a drolly self-aware character protecting himself behind the barbed wire of irony. In other words, the play is almost perfectly on the wavelength of, say, a self-loathing alcoholic theater critic. No, I’m not thinking of anyone in particular, why do you ask?