Thom Pain (based on nothing) Book

An Amazing Theatrical Experience

"Would that I may provoke in you a similar mark: a little growth, a blemish of real life. Don't think that I think I will."

But he does. Eno says that his play is based on nothing, but it is. It is based on the underside of this thing we believe we experience as Life: its pain, joy, comedy, moments of beauty and ugliness, fear and absurdity.

Oh, yes! Absurdity. This play harkens back to the Theatre of the Absurd of Beckett and Pirandello. Its flat, two-dimensional portrayal of what we all experience but mask in social conventions. It rips the masks away and makes us face the one thing that dominates our subconscious lives: FEAR, FEAR, FEAR.

There are no ogres, no Marvel supervillains here, no Monsters, just possibilities that terrify us. Loss of love, abandonment, failure, lack of answers, lack of reasons to go on. These are the fears that prey on our insecure selves. They are all here. On the stage. In the words of the monologue.

We are all the little boy in the Cowboy Outfit lying in the frozen puddle mourning the loss of his beloved doggy needing to find a reason to get up.

Not a pretty image but one we face in the mirror each day.