Luiz Roberto Zanotti, Mestrando UNIANDRADE PR Performance Space Reconfigured: Presence rather than Representation in Thom Pain (Based

d in Nothing) by Will Eno

The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters. Goya (1799) The evidence of structural changes occurring in the societies of the 20th century has been developed into new forms of approaching the question of subjectivity, as well as the issues of class, gender, ethnicity and race. The deconstruction of the subject caused deep ruptures in the way society builds its knowledge and relates to it. These ruptures brought serious modifications in the way the subject was conceptualized since the Age of Enlightenment the unified individual, governed by reason, with a kind of inner nucleus that made him identical throughout existence was replaced by new identities heading toward fragmentation. Modern man who until this moment was seen as a unified subject, with a stable anchorage in the social world, has his identity fractured through the subjects decentering, resulting in the loss of a stable self, effecting changes not only in nonliterary developments, but in the arts as well (Hall 07-46).

2 This rupture is one of the signs of passage from modernity to post-modernity, however, conceptualizing what is modern and what is post-modern consists in a quite complex task. In a simplification one could say the project of modernity is supposed to be based on clear distinction of the use of rationality and of the way of thinking dialectically, that despite its tradition since Plato, is a construction which fully takes place during this period. With reference to art, in the 19th century the artists subjectivity becomes responsible for his production, since the singular prevails over the collective, in the beginning a causeless hero, who speaks exclusively from his own being, but who becomes the one that embraces the social causes, the ideologically committed artist. In terms of theatre and drama, post-modernity can be characterized by the abandonment of dialectics as the main dramatic feature, the replacement of a linear Cartesian time by stream of consciousness, theatrical experience(s) where there is no separation between stage and audience, representation that shifts to production of presence: a dimension that makes things tangible causing an impact on our senses and body. Gumbrecht (138) talks about the time perception in contemporaneity, with the future appearing as something blocked, rather than being open(ed) to an array of options, causing a certain fear for it, making the present become omnipresent and dominate the contemporary scene more and more. The text Thom Pain (based on nothing), written in 2005, by the North-American playwright Will Eno, has several of the characteristics of this theatre which we call postmodern, since its monologue form, that makes presence rather than representation possible, with the protagonist talking directly to the audience, indisputably breaking the fourth wall; as well as what perhaps is its most interesting aspect, form used to prepare the reflection about the Socratic rationality theme, once the canonical forms of the past can no

3 longer contain the complexity of the contemporary world. As Brecht argued in Sarrazac (34), in the theatre its not enough to say new things you must say them in another way. Eno recycled old forms, he has made an intervention, converting old forms, obtaining for his theme a theatricality that characterizes his work as a whole. Therefore, Eno shows, both in form and in content(s) that life isnt governed by reason, that many times rationality fails, that existence is unfathomable and that there is no point in wanting to signify our acts and measure them facing a standard, a myth as, for instance, the myth of the American success. In order to do this, the author had to abandon the dramatic form, in its dialectical, spatial and temporal sense(s), exploring a new form that shows an immense abyss between the current theatre and its Aristotelian and Hegelian sources, a form which reveals the characters fragmentation, the total deconstruction of the dramatic narrative , the abolition of the borders between the inside and the outside of the stage and the production of presence in direct communication with the audience. The play deals with the non-linear account of a man devastated by a neglected childhood and marked by a complicated love relationship. The stage narrative strives to present life in its disappointments and losses, in the eternal anguish of the human condition, mixing the prosaic with metaphysics without, however, disassociating itself from reality. The play classical standards of plot and characterization construction and calls volunteers to take part in the theatrical game, showing the comic, dramatic and sadistic aspects of life through Thom Pains anxiety, alienation and fear. In order to bring this game very close to the reality of the audience, Eno resorts to what Gumbrecht (17) calls the production of presence, the sense of bringing before us an object in space, or even the relation with all the processes that the presence of the objects has on the human body. This concept is initially presented as a criticism to the excessive

4 rationalism of postmodernity, that has forgotten that the objects (things of the world) can be more than a simple attribution of a metaphysical meaning, and that the impact of these things may go beyond reason, involving our physical body. This dictatorship of meaning by means of reason has been the basic practice of the humanities, without taking into account that the aesthetic experience fluctuates between the presence effects and the significance effects, which seems to be in accordance with Nietzsches concept of Romantic disease . The Romantic disease for Nietzsche (254) is created by hyperdeveloped consciousness, which is a language slave. A consciousness tremendously clear, I can assure, is a disease, a very real disease. Thom Pains character construction still seems to be a search for noninterpretation. The very original subtitle in English, Based on nothing, that can be translated into Portuguese as both baseado em nada and baseado no nada shows the authors necessity of rejecting excessive rationality, for while the first translation may suggest that nothing or no sources were used for the plays composition, the second, baseado no nada, emerges as the Heideggerian concept of Nothing. Professor Polt (Miles 72-80) points out the rich history of the notion of Nothing in Heidegger's way of thinking. "We have found," he writes, "that Heidegger uses `Nothing' to refer to a wide variety of phenomena, including inauthenticity, uncanniness, death, guilt, meaninglessness, and the withdrawal of Being". He concludes that Heidegger's Introduction to Metaphysics does not contain a "doctrine' of Nothing," but rather should be understood as "a voyage and a provocation, not a treatise". The production of presence, instead of the representation, can be found since the beginning of the play, when, in darkness, Thom tries twice to light up the cigarette

5 unsuccessfully and immediately searches for audience recognition, an audience that, in spite of Thom being the only one to speak, has great importance, for it makes the monologists expression meaningful (Pavis 247). As Seel (Gumbrecht 63), this presence that permeates the actors performance as a whole, appears in the real difficulty of lighting up a match, in other words, showing that despite all the significance , there is a total limitation of the human control over things. To Gadamer (64), the actors being exists in the tension between the semantic elements (world) which make communication possible and the non-semantic ones (earth) which give him his existence in the space-volume. In a play, for Gumbrecht (30), there is an increase in value of the space with the actors lonely body performance on the stage, being time in its consciousness aspects put on second plane, for presence needs time suspension for a period in which exceptions are permitted, in an attitude that I consider similar to the carnivalization concept of Bakhtin. Another important characteristic of the play, very similar to the carnivalization, is its ritual character and the repetition of some passages that intensify the real presence as, for instance, the reiteration of the question: Do you like magic? (Eno, 13) This enjoying magic presents itself as enjoying illusion, the confrontation between the illusion and the real. At first, Thom says he doesnt like it. Anyway. Now. I guess we begin. Do you like magic? I dont. Enough about me. Lets get to our story. Do you want a story? Do you need to see me to hear me? If so, sorry. Not yet. Im afraid youll laugh at my native clothes. Promise you wont laugh. I know you wont, friends. I trust you. But not because you promised. Youll see me soon enough. But not yet. (13)

6 Later on, a Pause as a person who he is speaking to appears, a structural element of this monologue, which is used several times during the whole production. The pause, according to Sarrazac ( 25), disrupts the dramatic dialogue through silence and the non said. Lehmann (11), as he comments on the relation between poetry and art, refers to the example of the interruption, of the pause, as a shock possibility that makes reality become an impossibility, and makes us think about it. Lehmann (89), also affirms, in his work Postdramatic Theatre, that silence and, therefore the pause, can be classified inside a process of norm of sign(s) density, in other words, the dialectical use between plenitude and emptiness of the sign(s), taking into account that in this sense the theatre works with silence stimulating the members of the audience to imagine about this lack of material, somewhat as extolled by the painter Pablo Picasso: If you can paint with three colors, paint with two (Lehmann 85). Next, Thom Pain seeks the identification with the audience as he affirms that when he was a boy he was very similar to the children that the people of the audience must have been, one more characteristic feature of new theatrical texts, that according to Lehman (94), are not written with the theatre as the artistic activity domain, or as a metaphor of human life, but as a means of persuading the audience to look at itself as a subject that realizes, acquires knowledge and takes part in the creation of objects. These texts seem to invite the members of the audience to an experience that in this case means a profound existential experience, fact that cant be considered as a great change, once that even in ancient Greek theatre, the audience left their houses to see something new that could make them reflect and not see again what they already knew (Sophocles 07).

7 This invitation to reflection is presented in Thom Pain in the sequence that requests the audiences imagination, asking them to imagine that humanity as a whole is in a violin class. People are free to imagine. Now picture that the stick he is writing with is a violin bow. Picture a violin section. Picture every living person as a member of a violin section. We hold the bow above the strings, ready to play. Picture a bird settling on a branch. The violins are on fire. Feel the world inhale. Picture the readiness, the stillness, the virtuosity. Among this, the child. Picture ash blowing across a newly-blue sky Now go fuck yourselves.(Eno 15)

In this part of the play, the intertextual allusion of violins that burn refer to the burning forest of Death of a Salesman (Miller) . This reference shows since the beginning that everything is lost and that we dont control our own existence. In this play, when the protagonist Willy's life is crashing down around him, he says, "The woods are burning! I can't drive a car!". In this non-linear structure of time, Thom will self-define himself as a whatever, a definition that seems to carry all the sense put on the shoulders of the post-modern man, a whatever, a definition that in spite of talking a little about the person, for Thom the fact of being face to face to a modern mind can frighten them: Im like a whatever. I really am like a whatever. (Eno 15) Another characteristic of this play is the departure of a member of the audience during the show, in a continuous search for breaking down the barriers of dramatic illusion, Thom notices that that man who left is the same as him, who doesnt manage to face life: Im like him. I strike people as a person who just left (16).

8 This rupture in the narrative transforms itself in an almost tragedy when Thom tells about his dogs death when he was a boy, however, in a clear proposal of avoiding the excessive emotional involvement of the audience with the scene, transforming the show in a bourgeois drama, he breaks this atmosphere turning to the audience: Questions? (Immediately) No? I have one. (17) The necessity of making a joint reflection with the audience about existence, makes Thom try the strategy of direct address: What a nice crowd. Actually, I see no difference. In a world filled with difference, sickening disheartening difference, I see none. Between the you and the me. You all seem wonderful and I seem so wonderful, and so I make no distinctions, I see no separations, no unbridgeable distance between us, wonderful us. (20) Yet, the equality among men maybe, is the most important concept in the play, doesnt mean for Eno the victory of rationality, but the total impossibility of significance concerning the Cartesian dimension to cover the existence complexity. From then on he seeks to compensate for the loss of the presence dimension in contemporaneity, to recover according Gumbrecht (120) the spatial and concrete dimension of our existence temporarily (being within-the-world). The equality of the human being re-appeared when he broaches the human beings death, as he says that he believes if the audience knew they were living their last day of life on Earth, they would act bravely, with love, savagery and desertion, probably the same way as him; but on the other hand, if they know they would still have more forty years to live, they would nothing. The subject death is quite popular in the post-modernity, being found in so many others plays, such as in Wit, de Margaret Edison, where the American myth of

9 success is put face to face with death. According to Arthur Miller, a solution for a depression is a visit to a shopping center (Camati). Thom, right after talking about the serious problem of the human existence, tells: On the other hand, there are some nice shops in the area. I bought a candle-holder and a chair, today. I lost the candle-holder somewhere (Eno 20). So, he tells about a love affair, a date he had with a girl. The narration is fragmented and involve past facts in a non chronological sequence uncertain as if Thom was in a psychological process of analysis. The meaning is not immediately understood, however, the facts which in principle are insignificant through the free association provided by the perception will become significant. But the discussion about the Being and the Whatever re-appears in an Existentialist moment about the insignificance of the human being, what seems to be in a certain way linked to Based on nothing of the subtitle, due Whatever can means a lack of significance, or an extremely small thing and be related to the heideggerian concept of angst, the fundamental disposition to put us in view of the nothing. In this elliptic movement, he turned to relate his love experience, telling that his girl had watchful eyes, sober sometimes, a natural sort of animal guardedness, a doggy sort of way which he had found very fetching (22). So on, he follow his psychological analysis, telling about his personality formed in a darkness of his home, without effective presence of his father, or his mother, in a indirect critic to the American myth of success, in the sense the absolute needs to be a winner ( or a good consumer) in this environment, push the parents away from the home life. The worldview arises at night, without witness. The boys did, as he grew, changed, away from people, in the bathroom, in the rain, down halls in everyday

10 familial places. I dare say... no I dont. I do know they didnt pat his head. They didnt muss up his hair and say, Good Boy. He comes and goes, untouched, his childhood running out, as he becomes a foreigner, an immigrant to the place where he was born.(24) Right after, a new rupture of the narrative when Thom comments about he has the same model of a shirt which a man of the audience is wearing. Then, Thom tells about the discovery that Pain not existed only on his name, when he as a boy was attacked by bees after kick a beehive fallen on the woods ground, but instead of thinking he was being attacked by the bees, he thought they were taking his pain out which was in him as a kind of punishment. He really didnt understand things. Kind of beautiful, if you like that sort of thing. If you like the idea of a little boy desperately spreading stinging bees over his bleeding body. Desperately yelling Help me, Bees, Help, and putting his little swollen hand into the hive for more.(26) According Gumbrecht, the moments of intensity happen away from the esthetic experience of the common days, because in day-by-day life we normalize the esthetics by the ethics, losing this intensity Esthetics and the ethics are incompatible in this experience. The bee scene works as a resource - that Eno uses with quite harshness - to create intensity, a incredible experience out of the daily routine. () he argues that there is nothing we find more tiresome today than production of yet another nuance of meaning, of just a little more sense (Gumbrecht 105). Right at the start of the monologue, the dogs death in an electrified water puddle prepares the audience disposition for an esthetic experience according to Gumbrecht, who

11 seizes Bakthins insularity concept and can be analyzed in the light of being lost in a focused intensity, what means a performance perception extreme level by our bodies and minds. The play goes on in these comings and goings, with Thom apologizing to the audience, who he calls a kind group. When the play is almost ending, Thom asks for a volunteer from the audience that preferably was wearing light clothes, that spoke a second language an that liked a little violence, for he wanted to make someone suffer because of his pains: Because this is not my dream of her in lazy rivers, because I miss her leg around my neck, someone is going to pay (Eno 31). After another daydream moment starting from the girlfriends memories, of how they were happy and of not understanding well why she left him, he who never understands the things, for who everything is always very confusing, he who always did the things with fear, that doesnt have anything else but a dictionary, which contains different names for the same things to make life fuller of sense, Thom turns to the person who is on the stage, saying he have thought that she had already left, and shouts very loud: Buu! (36) So he tells the audience not to say anything, not to think about anything, only to be authentic, bearing in mind the little time that is left and try to be courageous, somebody better and blowing the word Fear: Nothing to be afraid of. Beautiful. Right. So the little boy, somewhat hilariously, as never able to - Boo. Sorry again. Enough. I have to go. You have to go. Maybe someone is waiting. Please be someone waiting. Im done with this. Important things will happen, now. I promise. Be stable, be stable, be stable, be stable.

12 Brief pause. THOM PAIN looks at the person on the stage, as if he was defying her to represent, to react. THOM PAIN moves some steps and gets off the stage. I know this wasnt a lot, but I believe it was enough. Do it. Buu. Isnt it a magnificence to be alive? Isnt it wonderful to be alive? (37) Finally, we can conclude that the construction of the presence of Thom get success due the direct speech to the audience, a real person speaking besides a character. The illusion is avoided, through the emotional dimension of the real performance and not as an emotional expression of a fictitious character, what emphasizes the play as a situation and not as a fiction. The play goes through a diversity of feelings like a moan, a prayer, a confession, an analysis, a self-accusation, and even a compliment, interference and offense towards the audience. An audience that is lead to frustration as it concludes that it isnt granted the acquaintance of the truth or of our fellow creature, and that our daily life is replete of precarious human relations, restlessness and discouragement of living, strangeness with the surrounding reality and with the uneasiness that terrorize the contemporary society in general (Camati).

WORKS CITED CAMATI, A. S. O teatro ps-dramtico de Martin Crimp. In: Anais do IV Congresso de Pesquisa e Ps-Graduao em Artes Cnicas. Rio de Janeiro: 7Letras, 2006. p. 20-21. CAMATI, A. S. Sobre Arthur Miller. Curitiba, 2006. Texto no publicado. ENO, Will. Thom Pain. New York: Theatre Communicatios Group, 2005. GUMBRECHT, Hans Ulrich. Corpo e formas. Rio de Janeiro: Ed. UERJ,1998. GUMBRECHT, Hans Ulrich. Production of Presence: What Meaning Cannot Convey. California: Stanford University Press, 2004.

13 HEIDEGGER, Martin. Ser e Tempo V.1.. Rio de Janeiro: Vozes, 2001. LEHMAN, Hans-Thies. Teatro Ps- dramtico e teatro poltico. In: Revista de Artes Cnicas. So Paulo, nmero 3, 2003. LEHMAN, Hans-Thies. Postdramatic theatre. New York : Routledge, 2006. MLILES, Groth. Tanslating Heidegger. New York. Prometeus Books, 2004. MILLER, Arthur.A morte do caixeiro viajante. So Paulo: Abril Cultural, 1976. NIETSZCHE, Friedrich. Genealogia da Moral. So Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1998. NUNES, Benedito.Passagem para o potico. So Paulo: tica, 1992. PAVIS, Patrice. Dicionrio de Teatro. Trad. sob a direo de J. Guinsburg & Maria Lucia Pereira. So Paulo: Perspectiva, 1999. SARRAZAC, Jean-Pierre. O futuro do drama: Escritas dramticas contemporneas. Porto: Campo da Letras, 2002. SFOCLES. dipo Rei. Trad. e estudo crtico de Donaldo Schler. Rio de Janeiro: Lamparina Editora, 2004.