Eh Joe
Eh Joe is a piece for television, written in English by Samuel Beckett, his first work for the medium.
"It [was] followed by six undated typescripts (numbered 0 – 4 and 'final version').”[1] Despite the English version being recorded first, due to delays at the BBC, the first actual broadcast was of Elmar and Erika Tophoven's[2] German translation, He Joe, on 13 April 1966, Beckett's sixtieth birthday, by Süddeutscher Rundfunk, Stuttgart; Beckett directed, his first credit as such.
An American production of Eh Joe was directed by frequent Beckett collaborator Alan Schneider, produced by Glenn Jordan and broadcast by WNDT on 18 April 1966.
[6] The play opens with Joe, a grey-haired man in his late fifties, sitting alone in an archetypal Beckettian room.
[10] The voice utters nine short speeches during which Beckett requires the actor remain practically motionless and stares unblinkingly toward – though not directly at – the camera lens, an extraordinary demand for physical restraint to ask of any actor, though in reality there were instances where, when filming, MacGowran did close his eyes for effect (e.g. after the word “Gillette”,[11] he closes his eyes and his face winces in pain).
Despite these unscripted breaks MacGowran found the role "the most gruelling twenty-two minutes I have ever had in my life" but he also admits it was the only time he was "wholly pleased with this work".
Beckett specifies that the voice should be as follows: "Low, distinct, remote, little colour, absolutely steady rhythm, slightly slower than normal".
Nancy Illig describes the kind of delivery that resulted from her work with Beckett in 1966, as a "hammering staccato”.
[19] Eh Joe is the complete antithesis to ... but the clouds ... in which a man strains nightly to evoke the image of a woman with little success.
His father's voice came to him for years until Joe found a way to stop him talking, to metaphorically throttle him, then his mother and finally, others, “[a]ll the others",[21] everyone it seems who ever loved him.
She warns him to be careful he doesn't run out of people to take advantage of because then there would only be him left to adore him until he too died.
She quotes from the parable of Jesus about the rich man and says one day God will talk to him like she is doing and, when he does, it'll be time for him to die.
Voice describes her going down to the sea close to her house wearing only her lavender slip where she attempts to drown herself[24] but it doesn't work.
The girl returns to the house, sopping wet, fetches a razor – the make Joe recommended to her – goes back down the garden, this time to the viaduct, where she also fails to slit her wrists.
When she reaches the spot she empties the tube and lies down in the end with her face a few feet from the – presumably incoming – tide.
At this point Beckett added the following instruction, which is not included in the printed text: "Eyes remember".
[26] Joe makes a concerted effort at this point and the woman's voice drops to a whisper.
She makes Joe imagine the girl lying there, describing events in erotic terms: “… part the lips … solitaire[27] … Breasts in the stones …Imagine the hands … What are they fondling?
As his face vanishes we realise he is smiling,[29] an important addition Beckett made to the play but which was never incorporated in the printed text.
On the surface he is like many of Beckett's lonely old men, affected by the effects of the choices he has made, but whereas many have simply ended up where they are by avoiding humanity, Joe has used and discarded it, particularly its women.
In many respects she is the distillation of all the previous voices, a last gasp, pointing an accusing finger at him on behalf of herself and all the others, particularly the suicide.
[37] We learn nothing about why his mother or father might trouble him after their deaths but disapproving or disappointed parents are plentiful enough throughout Beckett's work.
This is reminiscent of the following lines from The Expelled: "The play is full of verbs conveying what Joe’s voice describes as 'mental thuggee’: throttle, muzzle, spike, squeeze, tighten, silence, garrotte, finish, mum, strangle, stamp out, exterminate, still, kill, lay, choke".
[41] It has been suggested that Joe is actually masturbating while all this is going on[42] – and some of Voice's remarks do, not unreasonably, attack his current level of sexual prowess – but scholars tend to skim over the imagery used in the final section of Voice's diatribe so it is difficult to give anything more than a speculative interpretation.
In an attempt to introduce audiences theatre directors have sought means to translate the works from one medium to another within the bounds of tolerance of the Beckett Foundation.
Karen Fricker wrote in The Guardian: Gambon subsequently reprised the role in London and was due to appear at the Sydney Festival in January 2007 for a special Beckett Season but had to pull out for personal reasons.
In July 2008 Egoyan's production played New York City with Wilton still as Voice, now joined by Liam Neeson as Joe.
A less noteworthy staged interpretation was created by actor/director Cradeaux Alexander at the Kraine Theatre in his 2000 reworking which removed the old man completely from the proceedings, divided the woman's speech between three actresses and an actor leaving the audience to stand in as the beleaguered Joe.
In interview, Alexander had this to say: Eh Joe was the fourth and final play in a collection of short Beckett plays at the New York Theatre Workshop directed by JoAnne Akalaitis, starring Mikhail Baryshnikov and featuring new music by Philip Glass.
