Last night, she went to…a show about nothing.
(And what’s the deeeal with airport faucets?)
Full details–and they’re good details–after the jump.
I went to see Thom Pain last night in Bryant Hall at the Dallas Theater Center. First of all, very cool venue. It was my first time in their little black box space and I loved it. Second of all, very cool show. It bills itself as being based on nothing. Think Seinfeld written by Existentialists. It’s a one man, one act, one hour show. It was funny and thoughtful, and it was disturbing and uncomfortable. It was also an hour extremely well spent.
From the blackness of the opening to the oddness of the ending, Adrian LaTourelle, who plays Pain, is impossible to take your eyes off of. There is something very familiar about him with his thick black rimmed glasses and black suit. He’s so talented as to make you forget he’s acting. My favorite thing. I could listen to his voice for days, resonating and melodic. And his facial expressions and gestures were enough to carry several silent minutes of the play at a time. He was remarkable.
Some have likened the work to “stand-up” comedy of a sort. But that seems an unfair lessening of what it really is — a ticket to spend one hour in one man’s brain. A brain that is all too human and all too like each of us. Or, at least, of me. And, because he asked me (and the entire audience) to, I will tell you that at the very least — Thom Pain is trying. Show runs through June 25.
