This Vicious Minute

My overall impression

Not for the faint of heart. While it definitely takes courage to bare so much of oneself and of one’s addiction, I wasn’t clear at first if there was a point to it all. I got the sense that the cutting was due to Ben’s (although self-admitted during the show) need for attention, and the show just seems like the same need taken to the most extreme degree. I felt like little more than a cog in the performers vicious cycle of self-abuse, like an accidental Sisyphus – stumbling into this constant, horrifying, never-ending ordeal with no end in sight except the raising of the house lights.

When I left the theatre I felt as brutalized as the performer’s scarred and burnt body, and yet I’m strangely glad I saw it. Despite myself I feel hope for the man of the story – the man in real life, because the one thing that is missing in that vicious downward spiral of addiction leaves room for hope: self-pity. The piece is entirely devoid of the self-pity typical in most addicts and that fact alone makes This Vicious Minute more than just brutal – it does in fact give it purpose.