The eponymous protagonist of Will Eno’s one-man play Thom Pain (Based on Nothing) is the quintessential nowhere man, riffing on his failed romance, tormented childhood and dead-end jobs. But like Seinfeld—that other show famously based on nothing—it has certainly made a lot of itself. From its debut at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2004 (where it took the top prize), it’s gone on to critically acclaimed runs off-Broadway and in London’s West End, making a literary lion of its 41-year-old Brooklyn-based playwright, whom The New York Times dubbed “a Samuel Beckett for the Jon Stewart generation.” Like Beckett (and Stewart, for that matter), Eno is understated (spare sets, unadorned language), his shtick a mix of existentialism and stand-up (“I hate how you breathe,” Thom’s ex-girlfriend tells him). Eno’s play features sweet little nothings voiced by human zeroes. And yet they have a fugitive charm. “I…meant ‘nothing’ to be that same nothing that the universe is based on,” Eno says of Thom Pain’s subtitle. “A few stray and random atoms of nitrogen, some oxygen.” In much the same way, he explains, “Thom’s life was cobbled together out of…a couple of relatively small events.” In other words, nothing, when viewed from the right angle, looks a lot like something.

Thom Pain (Based on Nothing) runs Nov. 15 to Dec. 17 at the Tarragon Theatre Extra Space.