Review Roundup: What Did The Critics Think of Michael C. Hall in THOM PAIN (BASED ON NOTHING)?

Signature Theatre's production of Thom Pain (based on nothing), by Drama Desk Award-winning playwright Will Eno and directed by Obie Award-winner Oliver Butler, is now in performances and runs through December 2, 2018 on The Irene Diamond Stage at The Pershing Square Signature Center. The show, starring Michael C. Hall, officially opened last night, November 11.

This surreal and very real one-man show follows Thom Pain as he desperately, and hilariously, tries to save his own life...or at least make it into something worth dying for.

The creative team includes Amy Rubin (Scenic Design), Anita Yavich(Costume Design), Jen Schriever (Lighting Design), Lee Kinney (Sound Design). Charles M. Turner III is the Production Stage Manager. Casting by Caparelliotis Casting.

Let's see what the critics are saying...

Ben Brantley, The New York Times: It's Mr. Eno's love for and grasp of rhythmic language that most impress here. Listen, for instance, to Thom's trying to remember what might have inspired a young boy's wet dream: "Some fuzzy uneducated image of a girl, saying a word he liked. 'Voucher.' Or, 'Ankles.'"

Thom's angst may feel a trifle sophomoric now, like something he might grow out of. But his way with words, and that of the man who created him, is already deliciously ripe.

Sara Holdren, Vulture: Wandering across Amy Rubin's set, which not only strips the theater bare but tears out a corner of the stage and adds work-zone paraphernalia as if the place is under construction (there's even a handwritten sign at the entrance: "Please excuse our mess"), Hall, in his best, most vulnerable moments seems like an unfinished thing in an unfinished space - scarce half made up and sent before his time into this breathing world. Yet his endless cycle of reaching and running starts to feel self-defeating in ways that go past intention. Yes, Thom Pain is about anxiety and failure-"I did everything in fear," Thom admits-but it's also addicted to a coldness, a nonchalance that too often exhibits the very same fear it would like to examine. Perhaps I've known too many men like Thom, men inclined to substitute self-awareness for real emotional labor. I've felt for them, and I feel for Eno's poor Thom too, but there are limits to sympathy when its object, for all his trying, still possesses very limited courage.

Helen Shaw, TimeOut: Thom Pain has to fight a little too hard to be heard in the Pershing Square Signature Center's bigger theater, where director Oliver Butler has given it a very handsome and polished revival. Michael C. Hall performs Eno's script with immense charm (if not danger), but it's a piece that requires the intimacy of a mind moving very close to yours.

Tim Teeman, Daily Beast: It is a creepy, unsettling hour, a queasy voyage into a fractured mind, which Hall injects with menace and coldness. This aggressive, gaslighting retreat right in front of an audience's eyes is a fascinating literary exercise, but not a wholly successful theatrical one.

Michael Sommers, New York Stage Review: Construction materials and equipment litter portions of the stage, the deck is partly torn up, strings of caged light bulbs glow, and sheets of netting hang down from the rafters. The largest among Signature's three theaters, its 294-seat Irene Diamond space, with its deep, expansive, 60-foot wide stage, is not so conducive to an intimate solo show such as this one, but Butler's supportive production and Hall's intriguing presence usually are able to bridge the distance.

Elysa Gardner, New York Stage Review: Eno, Butler and their collaborators are showing us humanity at its rawest and most essential, and Hall-ironically seductive (as Thom should be), wearing a suit and tie, no less-captures the desperate energy and longing beneath Thom's caustic wit, while serving that last factor impeccably. The character and play rely on an unsettled audience, as he appears to confront audience members from the stage, and eventually leaves it to search the crowd for "not a volunteer, but, a subject"-another soul to toy with, or commune with, from a closer distance.