Pain? Relief!

Rarely have an actor and a monologue been as brilliantly paired as in Thom Pain (based on nothing). James Urbaniak was born to be Thom Pain, and playwright Will Eno has found the ideal personification of his text. Directed with precision by Hal Brooks, this is a genuinely great play, performed by a supremely gifted actor who has found the part of a lifetime.

The play is little more than an hour long but it contains more indelible truths, painful humor, and soaring imagination than some three-hour classics. Even at this relatively late stage of the theater season, we would have to say that it’s easily the best play of the year. It is certainly the most audacious. It consists — and this might scare some theatergoers — of what appears to be a stream-of-consciousness ramble in which an alienated, unhappy everyman speaks of his disappointments. This is a man who has allowed fear to dominate his life. Love and success have eluded him. But he’s learned something from his failures and, in his bitterness, he has something to tell us if only we’ll listen. When, at one point, he says, “Your throat must be dry from all the things you will never say,” he hasn’t just thrown down a gauntlet to the audience; he has probed deep into our souls. How often does that happen in the theater?

As it turns out, Thom’s rambling monlogue is anything but a stream of consciousness. It is carefully constructed, and it comes together at the end in a crescendo of emotion.

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Danny Aiello is Doing What?

Danny Aiello is living his dream. When he was 14 years old, his mother took him to an audition for a gig as a singer. With his fear rising, he went to the rest room before being called upon to show his stuff — and he never came back to the audition. Having fled his chance to be a singer in 1948, Aiello is finally fulfilling his dream — and, presumably, that of his mother — by starring in a nightclub act titled Danny Aiello: Back in Town at Feinstein’s at the Regency.

Before we go any further, we should reiterate what we’ve said before about Feinstein’s unusual talent booking: We admire and support it. There’s a genuine sense of surprise in the lineup for this season. The club has already topped itself by having offered Brian Stokes Mitchell and Chita Rivera; coming up are appearances by such unexpected folks as Mimi Hines, Debby Boone, Michael McKean & Annette O’Toole, and Bruce Vilanch, along with such popular returnees as Tony Danza, Keely Smith, and Jimmy Webb & Glen Campbell.

But what are we to make of Danny Aiello? A much-admired character actor, he isn’t what you’d call an icon. He is a sort of New York fixture, but do you really want to hear him sing? True, he made a CD that debuted at number four on the Billboard jazz chart, but that pleasant swipe at swing is essentially just ersatz Sinatra. One might say that Aiello is an actor pretending to be a saloon singer. His act is amusing but completely externalized; it’s all posture and posing. (He even wears sunglasses throughout.) You’d probably guess in advance that he’d sing “One For My Baby” — and, sure enough, he does.

There are few surprises here, but that’s basically a good thing. Once you accept what this show is going to be, you’ll be pleased by the good taste of the song selection; it’s all top-notch material, like “Some of These Days,” “All of Me,” “I’m Confessing That I Love You,” and lots of other standards. Aiello is backed by a superb eight-piece band that he graciously concedes is covering up his mistakes, but he doesn’t make many mistakes: He hits the notes, remembers the words, and connects with the audience.

The problem is that he sounds like Danny Aiello. At Feinstein’s prices, you have to really want to see this guy to dig that deep into your wallet. Perhaps that’s why Feinstein’s has only booked him through March 19.

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[To contact the Siegels directly, e-mail them at siegels@theatermania.com.]