Tom McCamus (11/06 Thom Pain)
Excerpt from Jam!Showbiz 11/18/06: Tom McCamus
Tom McCamus shines in 'Thom Pain'
By JOHN COULBOURN -- Toronto Sun
If you're inclined to measure the quality of theatre based solely on the amount of controversy it generates, then surely Will Eno's strange little entry, Thom Pain (based on nothing), is up there with the masters.
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Regardless, it's high time Toronto got a look at it -- and now, thanks to a production that opened in the Tarragon Theatre's Extra Space earlier this week, we can. Happily, there is much to recommend in this production -- most of it wrapped up in the person of Tom McCamus, who tears into Eno's nihilistic monologue with both a passion and a precision that are compelling. McCamus is cast as the Thom Pain of title, and it is quickly evident that the only things this sad-sack has in common with the acclaimed pamphleteer and the celebrated author of tomes such as The Rights Of Man are a name and a species. If McCamus' Pain were to author anything, it would almost definitely be an attempt to catalogue the wrongs of man. As he rambles through sporadic recollections of a childhood of neglect that, if they are his, have led him into an adulthood of broken dreams and disappointments, it is almost impossible not to feel some sort of empathy for him. But as he recounts memories of a life that seems to have started on the shores of a mud puddle on a long-ago day when his beloved dog was killed in a freak electrical storm, and ended on the day the love of his life walked out on him, it seems equally impossible to establish any sort of bond with him. He's looking for things like love and respect, even while he pushes us away.
Under the direction of Jennifer Tarver, McCamus gives yet another in a long string of sure-footed performances, accomplishing the demands Eno's script places upon him with deceptive ease. Whether he is abusing his audience for his inability to connect, or painting glorious miniatures in words only to destroy them in a pique of childish petulance, he is never anything less than compelling. For me, however, it remains an evening that is far more about the performance than the play.
© The Canoe Network
Excerpt from The Globe and Mail 11/18/06: Tom McCamus
Time heals Thom Pain
KAMAL AL-SOLAYLEE Published Saturday, Nov. 18 2006, 12:00 AM EST
This critical shift is a testament to a clear but freewheeling direction from Jennifer Tarver and a commanding performance from Tom McCamus, who wears every hat that Eno's script throws -- standup comic, magician, philosopher, lunatic, sadist, the list goes on -- as if it were custom-made for him. In fact, McCamus banished all thoughts of James Urbaniak, the actor who originated the role and was in part responsible for the initial critical acclaim. It's a given that McCamus, an intense, dramatic actor, will transmit the anxiety, alienation and fear that Thom Pain is only too willing to share with, and inflict on, his audience. That's the easy part. "Isn't it wonderful how we never recover?" he asks after telling one of two defining life stories, of a loveless child whose dog is electrocuted and an adult male whose one chance of love and happiness goes up in flames. McCamus tells them not as urban-gothic stories but as familiar pleas for love, human connection and mental stability. When he delivers Thom's parting words -- "Isn't it great to be alive" -- you're left with a glimmer of honest optimism that Urbaniak was never as convincing in capturing.
Tarver's production of Thom Pain clocks in at just under 55 minutes, which suggests that McCamus does it better and shorter. By evening's end, you may feel like you've had enough of Thom Pain's tortured soul but wish his onstage emissary could stay and regale you with those childhood and dating traumas a little while longer. Thom Pain (based on nothing) continues at Toronto's Tarragon Extra Space until Dec. 17 (416-531-1827).
© The Globe and Mail
Excerpt from Now Toronto 11/23/06: Tom McCamus
Pure Pain
November 23, 2006 12:00 AM
THOM PAIN (BASED ON NOTHING) by Will Eno, directed by Jennifer Tarver. At the Tarragon Theatre (30 Bridgman). To December 17. $27-$32, Sun pwyc-$17. 416-531-1827. In the Toronto premiere of thom Pain , the unnerving title character ( Tom McCamus ) demands, "Are you afraid to be face-to-face with a modern mind?" If your answer is no, Thom Pain is for you.
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McCamus draws the audience into Pain's distracted emotional and intellectual state with the barest suggestion of a plot. Though the script is clever, filled with gorgeous images better suited to a novel or poem than to a monologue, the threadbare narrative means the burden of the play's success falls squarely on the actor's shoulders in this very male and very neurotic piece of theatre. Luckily, McCamus pulls the audience into Pain's fragmented mind with his nervous magnetism, his ability to transmit fragility and fury in a single facial tremor. And somehow, with these small, intimate tics, McCamus reveals a touching soul that no amount of modern bluster can overshadow.
© Now Toronto
Excerpt from Stage Door 11/23/06: Tom McCamus
Thom Pain (based on nothing)
2006-11-23 Christopher Hoile
Tom McCamus’s portrayal of Thom Pain is technically excellent, but it’s clear he is miscast. McCamus naturally exudes an undisguisable charisma and intensity that inform everything he does--precisely what Thom should so crucially lack. In McCamus’s hands, Thom’s interaction with the audience comes off slyly calculating rather than signifying, as they should, Thom’s total ineptitude in dealing with the outside world.
© Stage Door
Globe and Mail 11/25/06: Tom McCamus
One Man's Pain
SARAH HAMPSON Published Saturday, Nov. 25 2006, 12:00 AM EST
Tom McCamus is in stream-of-consciousness mode. "When you read it, you have no idea really what's going on. It is like a puzzle," the Manitoba-born actor says. And sure enough, he looks puzzled. He shakes his head a little; squirms in his chair; puts his elbow on the table. He is talking about Thom Pain (based on nothing), the one-man play by New York playwright Will Eno. McCamus is playing the title role in a production of the Pulitzer-nominated play at Toronto's Tarragon Theatre, and he's clearly at pains to describe Pain's pain. (Oh yes, the whole thing can get confusing, both on stage and off. What it is not is about nothing.) "You have to figure out what he is talking about," McCamus continues. "Obviously, he tells a couple of stories about the boy and about the woman, and obviously, as you go along, you realize it's about his own personal relationship and the boy is probably himself."
He takes a breath. "And in order for it to work, it has to be as if it's in the moment, totally in the moment, and as if he's making it up as he goes along."
A small sigh. "Basically, he's trying to grasp a moment, and in order to grasp a moment, you have to be in the moment, but it keeps slipping away, and so he keeps coming back."
McCamus stops there. Takes a sip of his espresso. Shrugs. It's no wonder the 51-year-old hesitated before taking the part. "I thought it was too weird," he says. "I couldn't get it at all. But that last line of his, 'Isn't it great to be alive?' struck me. I went back to reread it. And I then thought this is something I can't afford not to do, if I can decode it."
The award-winning actor, a screen and stage veteran who has appeared in everything from Shakespeare to experimental plays, says this is "the hardest thing I have ever had to figure out."
From the moment Thom Pain (based on nothing) started life in London at the Soho Theatre as a reading in 2004, going on to the Edinburgh Festival, back to London and then on to Broadway in early 2005, it has garnered not just awards and nominations, but a lot of buzz, good and bad. The New York Times called Eno "a Samuel Beckett for the Jon Stewart generation." The play has been described as "stand-up existentialism." But some critics found it too obscure.
Pain is a middle-aged sad-sack who is trying to figure out how all the pieces fit -- his childhood, a memory about his dog dying in a freak electrical storm, his ex-girlfriend who didn't like the way he breathed. He addresses the audience, alternately lyrical and mean-spirited. Often confrontational, he singles out a few people, which is enough to make anyone want to slink under his or her seat. "I definitely try to not have it be a rant against the audience," explains McCamus. "I try to make it seem as if I'm asking the audience, 'Let's figure this out together, shall we?' The audience is like the other character, and they're trying to figure out whatever it is he's trying to figure out. That's what he is asking them to do. And he's trying to dislodge a few expectations, so that we're prepared to think differently, not just sit and watch, but participate in this journey, this search that he's on."
Sometimes, there is a lively exchange between the audience and his character, he says. One night last week, in a part when Thom Pain tells them, "You're being very patient," someone responded, "Yes, we are." And on another night, when Pain addresses a woman and invites her out, saying, "And should your bright and ladylike ways give way to those of a drunk, cold and repetitive pig, that's all right, I'll still love you," the woman replied, "That's exactly what I'm like." McCamus was so startled, he couldn't think of a retort.
The theatrical monologue is best when it's elastic, easily bent to the mood of the audience, McCamus says. During matinees, there is often an older group, he explains. "And so with those first couple of [slightly offensive]things I say to them, they shut right up. And that's not going to do any good, so I think I've got to change it somehow. I've got to let them in somehow." What does he do? "I don't know," he responds, laughing. "I'm working on that one at the moment."
The fractured structure of the hour-long play is perfect for the times, McCamus believes. "You can't put your finger on anything," he says, back in the stream of his thoughts. "You know, I was watching David Letterman the other night, and the comic [former Seinfeld actor]Michael Richards apologized for the racist comments he made [during a stand-up routine] But the audience was laughing at him. It was like this weird play. Maybe they thought he was still joking -- I don't know. But he was devastated, and finally he even said, 'Maybe this is not the not the right place for me to be doing this.' "
"The world is weird," McCamus adds, shaking his head. "Everybody wants black or white, right or wrong. But there is no black and white, right or wrong."
Thom Pain is also about how unknowable people are. Even when he tries to explain himself, he can't. Or maybe he lost himself a little in the effort to find Thom Pain. McCamus, unwittingly, makes the same point about himself. He tells me bullet-points about his life. Born in Winnipeg. Oldest of two boys. Father a Labatt's executive. Mother a University of Western Ontario professor. Studied theatre at the University of Windsor. Met his wife, actress Chick Reid, in Toronto. Has lived in Warkworth, Ont., two hours northeast of Toronto, for five years. Fifty acres. Century-old house. No children. Three dogs. He often struggles with his life as an actor, especially as he gets older. "I'm sort of questioning it," he says at one point. "You get tired of doing it. I do love it, but it gets harder and harder as you get older because you know what it could be, how hard it is to get it right. You realize how hard it is to be simple."
He shifts in his chair again. "You know how they say less is more? Well, a lot of times, less is less, too. It's like you have to choose when less is more, whereas when you are younger, you just go, 'Oh, less is more,' so you do less and that's good. But when you get older, you go, 'Um, wait a minute, less is less, so how do I find the right less?'"
Sounds a little like something Thom Pain would say. Life is a one-person performance, after all, and it can be a puzzle, too. Thom Pain (based on nothing) runs at Toronto's Tarragon Extra Space until Dec. 17 (416-531-1827).
The life of an actor
Tom McCamus gets paid decent small-theatre rates, about $800 a week, to play Thom P ain. But the gig only lasts six weeks. He never knows if his performance is any good. "Neil Munro [a director at the Shaw Festival]once said to me, 'If you come off stage and you think you've done a great job, you probably did a really bad job. When you come off stage and you think you just did your job, you've probably done your best one,'" McCamus says.
© Globe and Mail
Excerpt from The Globe and Mail 12/7/06: TOm McCamus
GOING OUT: YOUR GUIDE TO THE WEEK'S ENTERTAINMENT
Brad Wheeler Published Thursday, Dec. 07 2006, 12:00 AM EST
Thom Pain (based on nothing). As a stand-up comic, magician, philosopher and lunatic, Tom McCamus stars in Will Eno's acclaimed one-man play. To Dec. 17. $27 to $32. Tarragon Theatre Extra Space, 30 Bridgman Ave., 416-531-1827.
© The Globe and Mail
Excerpt from The Globe and Mail 12/14/06: Tom McCamus
GOING OUT
Compiled by Brad Wheeler Published Thursday, Dec. 14 2006, 12:00 AM EST
Thom Pain (based on nothing). As a stand-up comic, magician, and lunatic, Tom McCamus is up to something in Will Eno's acclaimed one-man play. To Sunday. $27 to $32. Tarragon Theatre Extra Space, 30 Bridgman Ave., 416-531-1827.
© The Globe and Mail
National Post: Tom McCamus
Horton heard a negative review
An American critic described Will Eno, author of the monologue Thom Pain (based on Nothing) as "a Samuel Beckett for the Jon Stewart generation"; the phrase is much quoted in the Toronto production's publicity, and it seems very apt. I imagine that the Beckett part is what attracted the director, Jennifer Tarver; she handles the disquieting aspects very well. She's less successful with the wise-cracking parts, possibly because her performer, Tom McCamus, is a finer actor than he is a stand-up comic. He does very well alternately taunting and embarrassing us, and the character he plays, from behind a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, but he isn't quite light enough.
© National Post
Excerpt from Toronto Star 10/30/08: Tom McCamus
Stage director finds success with the single man
By: Richard Ouzounian Theatre Critic, Published on Thu Oct 30 2008
Jennifer Tarver is earning a reputation as a one-man woman. We're not talking about the stage director's personal life, but her professional one. Her last two hit shows (Thom Pain and Krapp's Last Tape) were solo vehicles for an impressive pair of actors: Tom McCamus and Brian Dennehy.
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"I find myself saying to the actor, `This is what I think the play is going to require; now what do you think?' That way you find out where they're coming from and get everything out in the open." And despite - or maybe because of - the distinctive personalities that McCamus, Dennehy and Bhaneja possess, Tarver has found it all stimulating.
© Toronto Star