"Eh, Joe"

 Lincoln Center Festival

Gerald W. Lynch Theater

July 16, 2008

vanloan@nyconstage.org

Guilt, that tormented emotion of self-reproach over wrongdoings (actual or perceived) is conspicuously absent in today's society. Passing the buck, finger pointing, huge financial settlements without admission of fault, confessions with promises of immunity are the norm of the day. So, it's quite shocking to find one's self immersed in a 30 minute torrent of guilt at the Lincoln Center Festival '08 production of Samuel Beckett's "Eh, Joe".

Part of the Gate/Beckett Festival, "Eh, Joe" is the centerpiece of three theatrical works by Nobel laureate Samuel Beckett (the other two are First Love adapted from his novella and I'll Go On a dramatization of three short narrative works). Written as a teleplay, "Eh, Joe" follows one man's long journey into night as he mentally recounts an incident from his youth. As he goes about securing his tiny decrepit apartment from imagined (sinister?) forces, we hear an accusing, seductive voice in his head. She (the malevolent voice is definitely a woman's) softly coos, "Is that enough; are you sure?" As the evening progresses the voice slowly becomes an instrument of torture as she recounts the suicide of one of Joe's former lovers (herself?). With surgical precision, she slowly, deliberately makes Joe face the callous self-serving behavior of his life.
It doesn't sound very appealing yet in reality it was one of the most mesmerizing evenings in the theater in a very long time.

As Joe, stage and film star Liam Neeson never says a word. He sits silently on his bed as the ominous monotone voice (Penelope Wilton) in his head takes inventory of his life. Yet, Canadian film/stage director Adam Egoyan has installed a camera in the wings which projects Neeson's every reaction onto a large screen stage left. A raised eyebrow, a grimace at a remembered slight, eyes watering up in pain are all captured with a merciless urgency. The entire show is basically one long masterly controlled reaction shot. The stage action is viewed through a scrim which further heightens the haunted psychological effect of the evening. Yet, Neeson's tour-de-force performance would not exist without Ms. Wilton's acid-dripped rendering of Beckett's text (they perversely reminded me of another doomed couple, Lord and Lady Macbeth). Adding James McConnell ghostly lighting design into the mix, this production of "Eh, Joe" disturbs one long after it ends.
 

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