Thomas is excited about tonight; so excited that he has called his parents and his brother with the time to look out for biggest meteor storm in 33 years that will fill the night sky he adores. His obsessive passion and the fascination he has for stars, along with all the other stuff out there, is the sort of thing that might appear on his eponymous list: Everything That Annoys Me, and You. It doesn’t of course, because it’s his annoying trait, but it’s probably high on the list of his family’s and friends’ (if he has any) and if they are equally neurotic.
The big twist occurs and the long build-up finally leads into the grand revelation
He’s an amateur astronomer with a cheap telescope that nevertheless looks the part. He’s probably amateur at most things, including life itself. He has a detached relationship with both his mother and father and his phone calls to them usually end in some form of disagreement, with each call further fracturing their bonds. He’s deeply attached to brother Marky, however, but every attempt to call him is met with the same recorded apology for not being available followed by a bleep.
Dan Daniels, both playwright and performer, reveals Thomas, or Tank, as he likes to call himself, as a self-conscious and nervous young man, given to rambling discourses that reveal his tensions and, of course, all those things that annoy him which he has listed in volumes of notebooks. It’s an odd, random collection of pet hates, but then that is in the nature of idiosyncrasies. As an expression of his eccentric mindset they serve their purpose, but they seem strangely unrelated to the thrust of the play, as does the title, which places undue attention on this one aspect the discourse.
There is a far deeper side to this play that revolves around Tank’s mental health and his inability to reconcile himself to the realities of life and the circumstances in which he finds himself; to come to terms with his academic and social shortcomings and his inability to successfully communicate. He has a flat, a job and some existential moments, but he is still a loser.
After some time spent wondering where this play is going and whether Romeo Rygolski’s direction is going to lift it to another level, the big twist occurs and the long build-up finally leads into the grand revelation. The various elements, however, lack a level of coherence that could be added to Tank's list of niggling little things.
