60 THE LIST’ FESTIVAL MAGAZINE 5")»-
James Pain (ab
iak as Thom and as Robert _" mb (below) in "can Splendor
I Unless you’re a regular visitor to New York theatreland - where James Urbaniak is regularly to be found and admired on stage - you’re more likely to have
No Pain, no gain
Steve Cramer meets dramatist Will Eno and actor James Urbaniak to discuss depression, existential angst, but ultimately optimism in Eno’s new play THOM PAIN.
he most compelling script of many that this critic read in the run up to the
Festival was delivered over a table in a coffee shop in New York. The next
moming I sat in Central Park. at first impressed by a sharp and supremely witty wordplay. Yet it is not this that compels about Thom Paine. but a deeply emotional pay off. which I won’t spoil. and you won‘t expect.
It‘s the slip between cup and lip. the place where things are undead and buried. liable to return. It‘s where childhood traumas dwell. still thriving and an old lover. as the Psychedelic Furs put it. ‘lives in the place at the side of our lives where nothing is ever put straight‘. But most of all. it‘s about language. There‘s also pain in language. for it is a medium the precision of which slips. never allowing the full
force of the inner self to be revealed. It plays tricks as well. with double meanings. intended or “1w” IS A WORD
not. revealing far more than we sometimes wish. It all happens in Eno‘s monologue. in which a man arrives at what might be a public address of
some kind. but immediately comes unravelled.
sharing random observations and increasingly
personal revelations with his audience.
Underneath a show of indifference. our defence against inner agonies. the title character. whose relationship with the revolutionary writer of
similar name is the purest of unstated ironies. is
initially characterised by the catch phrase
‘whatever‘. So is the new Iii'erjvman whatever
man‘.’ Eno objects to the word. 'lt disgusts me
about the common discourse. and disgusts me about myself. that eagemess to use the word “whatever” to cover over intensely complicated feelings. You could call it the laziest word in the English language. It‘s a word that practically scratches its own balls.‘
James Urbaniak. an actor well known on Broadway. and much admired for his portrayal of Robert Crumb in the film American Splendor. will be delivering the monologue. and adds a political dimension to contemporary indifference. ‘Arguably. George W Bush saying you‘re either with us or against us is a big whatever to the world. “It doesn‘t matter what you think. I‘m just going to do whatever I want.”
The shoddy glad-handing of the character through most of its length might be seen as the beginning of a purgation. ‘By being so detached. in front of an audience he‘s criticising his audience. He‘s putting himself out there saying. “Look. I‘m an asshole. I've been an asshole. this is what assholes are like — think about that." But he‘s doing it in an interesting way. He’s downright evangelical in a way.‘ says Urbaniak.
And ultimately. we might find something uncomfortable about ourselves in his indifference. and recognisable in his documentation of detail. ‘He talks about these very mundane. peripheral events that somehow are loaded to him.‘ says Eno. ‘I think everyone experiences that. but it‘s very personal. We can sit around and have very frank discussions about sex. but I think that doesn‘t get to the heart. And we still try to reach people. What I like about him is from the facts of the case. he has no reason to love you or care about you in any way. But he’s still going out to people by the end of it.‘ That‘s perhaps the best any of us can do.
Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, 8-20 Aug (not 10, 16), 3pm, £9—10 (527.504.28.50). Previews 5-7 Aug, £5.
Nobel Prize-winning literary genius. Woody Allen found him sufficiently appealing in Hartley’s The Book of Life to cast him in the excellent and charming Sweet and
come across him in the films of Hal Hartley. Tall, angular and supremer geeky looking, he’s unlikely ever to be cast as a romantic lead, but fits so naturally into dysfunctional, brainiac roles that you wonder if they aren’t really a reflection of his true self. One of his finest parts for Hartley was in Henry Fool, in which he played an unassuming garbage man who turns out to be a
12 Aug 2004
Lowdown alongside Sean Penn. More geeky roles called, and in his recent outing as Robert Crumb in
American Splendor he was so unassuming and real that many suspected the cult cartoonist was playing himself. What is undisputed, though, is that Urbaniak does pack above average grey matter and won’t simply be going through the motions in this complex, challenging play.