Abstract
Dubbed “stand-up existentialism” by The New York Times, Thom Pain (based on nothing)is a wry, sardonic monologue by an ordinary man. The play, a surreal meditation on life’s unfulfilled promise, is ultimately optimistic, but not before Thom Pain muses on childhood, yearning, disappointment and loss. Cataloguing the eternal agonies of the human condition, he draws his audience into his last-ditch plea for empathy and enlightenment. The work was first performed at the Soho Theatre in London as a Launch Pad reading, and then premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2004, where it won several awards. Its U.S. premiere was in January 2005 in New York. New Rep is honored to be presenting the New England premiere of this important work. Lowell-born, Brooklyn-based Will Eno, is a Guggenheim Fellow, Edward F. Albee Foundation Fellow, and an Oppenheimer Award winner. He has been called “a Samuel Beckett for the Jon Stewart generation,” by The New York Times.