Rainn Wilson (“Six Feet Under,” “The Office”) tackles Thom Pain: based on nothing, a quirky monologue written for him by Will Eno, a highly regarded New York playwright attached to the Signature Theater Company. Actually, the piece was first performed at the 2004 Edinburgh Fringe Festival before it made its way across the pond. Now it has opened for a brief run in L.A., where it is sure to attract much attention. A poetic passive-aggressive one-man play is perhaps the best way to describe Thom Pain. It opens with Wilson standing in silence and darkness for many long beats. Just when the restless audience begins to titter and grumble, the lights come up on the tall, hulking actor who with deadpan expression begins to talk about a small boy walking in the park with his dog. Eno’s language shines here with its impressionistic description of the boy, the day, the trees, the birds in the sky. Then comes a sneak punch: the dog steps into a puddle where a downed power line has fallen. The dog is electrocuted in horrific fashion thereby traumatizing the boy in a profound and permanent way. Any joy or pleasure he should feel in life will be short-circuited, thwarted. To get back at his fate, he often lashes out at those around him (the audience), sometimes wittily, other times insultingly. In a way, Wilson’s character comes off as a highbrow Don Rickles. In one of his typical tropes, Wilson invites an audience member to come up on stage, only to ignore him after that and leave him standing there bewilderedly and mutely while he launches into another spiel. Wilson also tells jokes without punch lines, then begins painting a romantic portrait of a woman he loved, only to suddenly break off and chew her out for walking out on him. Wilson handles all of these mood-shifts and contradictions in a masterful way; he is fully in command up there, holding the audience spellbound even when he sometimes speaks so softly that his lines lose their meaning. As maddening and perverse as much of Thom Pain is, there is much to like about Eno’s text, which comes off as a lesson in irony, especially when the world-weary, oft-wounded protagonist concludes the night by exclaiming, “Isn’t it great to be alive?”
