Australian company Red Line Productions will present Will Eno's Thom Pain (based on nothing) via its YouTube channel for a limited run. Starring Toby Schmitz (The Present, Black Sails), the monologue play has been filmed by nine cameras and will be available globally.
Thom Pain is about a man who is desperately, and comically, trying to save his own life. After debuting in London, the play premiered Off-Broadway in 2005; it was revived in New York in 2018 at the Signature Theatre, starring Michael C. Hall.
Streaming from June 29 through July 4, Red Line will also screen Thom Pain specifically for audiences on American East Coast time on July 3 at 9:30 PM ET. All other times are 7:30 PM AEST, via Red Line's YouTube, with tickets available both freely and on a pay-what-you-can basis. Book tickets here.
"Though this is not the original vision of the play—via video, etc.— there is something very right about it," shares playwright Eno. "Thom speaks, he tries to think and feel his way through his life, fairly certain he’s mostly alone, but also wondering and hoping he might be reaching someone who is even lonelier and more alone, in a distant land or different time zone. Wondering and hoping, and I think trusting, that there is a real world here."
Red Line's virtual production of Thom Pain follows two earlier streams, of Rajiv Joseph's Gruesome Playground Injuries (featuring Rose Byrne, Ewen Leslie and live music by John Butler) and Lyle Kessler's Orphans (featuring Alec Baldwin, Aaron Glenane and Andrew Henry).
